THE 




Macaulay' 




P R 



.MIS. 




Class. 

Book 

Gopyright]*!^ 






CORfRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE CRANE CLASSICS 



P. H. PEARSON, A. M. 

Professor of the English Language and Literature 
at Bethany College 



MACAULAY'S 
ESSAY ON MILTON 



THE CRANE CLASSICS 



MACAULAY'S 



ESSAY ON MILTON 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION, STUDY 
PLAN, AND NOTES 



BY 



P. H. PEAESON, A.M. 

Professor of the English Language and Literature 
In Bethany College 



CRANE & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

TOPEKA, KANSAS 

1904 



jUE 






OCT «0 t804 

eogyrfsrht ErtiT^- 

CLASS yi^xxo.-w 



\SS/^XXo.-Nc 






Copyright 1904, 

By Crane & Company, 

Topeka, Kansas. 



;i PEEFAOE. 



The editor does not presume to tell the pupil what he 
'ought to find in this classic, but directs him to search. 
The search, if conducted in accordance with an orderly- 
plan, will be primarily analytic and interpretative. To 
be complete, this j)rimary process should be followed by 
further study, in which the results are gathered up and 
reviewed in synthetic appreciations. The editor has also 
taken cognizance of the present tendency to bring the 
study of English prose into close relation with the work 
in composition; and with this in view he has appended 
to the " Study Plan " a number of exercises calling for 
a close examination of the essay in matters of form. 

The notes are given with sufficient fullness, it is hoped, 
to remove obstacles standing in the way of clearness. ITo 
classification of the notes has been attempted; the pupil's 
own needs will determine what may be omitted as irrele- 
vant and what must be looked up as essential to a perfect 
grasp of the subject-matter. P. H. P. 

Bethany College, September, 1904. 



(5) 



OONTEI^TS. 



PAGE. 

Peeface 5 

Introduction Y 

Study-Plan 18 

Essay on Milton 39 

Notes 107 



II^TRODUOTIOI^. 



The " Essay on Milton/' first published in the Edin- 
hurgh Review in 1825, heralded a new departure in the 
literature of criticism. ]^otliing with such dash and 
vigor had as yet appeared among the book reviews. Fran- 
cis Jeffrey, the editor, expressed his enthusiasm in a per- 
sonal letter in which, among other things, he asked the 
writer, "where he had picked up that style." Macaulay 
was then fresh from college ; he was only about twenty- 
five years of age ; and the readers of this, almost his first 
venture, were entirely in the right when they regarded it 
as a forerunner of a series of brilliant efforts of the same 
kind. 

In 1825 the eyes of the public were watching with 
eager interest the struggles between the principles of 
monarchy and democracy, then going on in various parts 
of the world. The settlement of the upheavals caused by 
the French Revolution were still matters for the grave 
anxiety of statesmen all over Europe. Sentiments of 
freedom of conscience and freedom of government had 
struck deep roots in the minds of the people. There was 
manifested a zeal for liberty, which in different quarters 
had resulted in an appeal to arms. "While this essay was 
being penned the Greeks were fighting against the Turks 
for the independence wrested from them by Philip of 
Macedon two thousand years earlier. 

(7) 



8 INTKODUCTIOlSr. 

During these stormy times Macaulay appeared, a man 
■who had something signijS.cant to say about issues of this 
very kind, about men that were in the eyes of the pub- 
lic and about measures that concerned their vital inter- 
ests. He was clear, vigorous, trenchant, and, in his views, 
fearless to a degree that excited the admiration of both 
friends and opponents. He stated his convictions with 
an assurance that sounded like a straight-away challenge. 
Moreover, whether he wrote historical, critical, or liter- 
ary essays, he did not get far away from the concerns 
that were vital to his contemporaries. In the " Essay on 
Milton," for instance, a part is a close study of Milton's 
poems ; and here Macaulay takes occasion to add some 
valuable contributions to criticism and to the theory of the 
art of poetry. But in the main the Essay is a study of 
Milton the man: it tells what part he took in the strug- 
gles going on about him, and what his genius wrought 
for freedom in government and freedom of conscience. 

John Milton was born in London, in 1608. From his 
earliest years he showed an eager desire for study, in 
which he was encouraged by his father. At the age of 
thirteen he entered St. Paul's School, in London, where 
competent teachers started him and directed him in clas- 
sic studies. The construction of Latin verse was one of 
the disciplines of the curriculum, and in this branch 
young Milton seems early to have shown unusual apti- 
tude. In February, 1625, he was eni-olled as a student 
in Christ's College, Cambridge. Llere, though he was 
started on the beaten path of humanistic learning in ac- 
cordance with prescribed courses, he gave special atten- 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

tion to the philosophy of Plato, and showed a desire to 
strike out for himself in fields of research not taken np 
in the schedules of the University. He took the degree of 
Bachelor of Arts in 1629, and three years later that of 
Master of Arts. 

After the completion of his university studies, he re- 
turned to his father's country home at Ilorton, near Lon- 
don. During the five years that now followed, he con- 
tinued his studies with unabated zeal. From this period 
date four of his most charming lyrics — "L' Allegro," 
" II Penseroso," " Comus," and " Lycidas." 

Italy was then the center of classic learning, the home 
of classic scholars. In the spring of 1638 he set out for 
this country, with which his studies had been so con- 
stantly associated. His tour took him to Paris, Nice, 
Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, l^aples, Florence, and Rome. 
Besides many young Italian noblemen of literary dis- 
tinction, he met Galileo, and the noted patron of letters, 
Manso, the Marquis of Villa. 

Milton had been in Italy a little more than a year 
when rumors of the political disturbances in his native 
country reached him, and caused him to set out for 
England at once. In 1639 he reached London, where he 
settled down, and, as temporary employment, gave instruc- 
tion to young men in classic subjects. 

The troubles that shook the very foundations of the 
English government in the seventeenth century had two 
distinct series of cshises which converged in every crisis. 
When the Reformation had been carried through and the 
State Church established, there existed many differences 
in matters of doctrine and of church government. Some 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

]ieople could not entirely forsake tlie Roman Cliurcli. 
Some could not agree with the tenets of the Established 
Church as embodied in the " Thirty-nine Articles." Some 
believed in still more radical reforms and a still more 
thorough purification of doctrine. This latter class was 
known as " Puritans." In general, all classes held to 
democratic principles in church government. One body, 
the Presbyterians, favored government by synods or pres- 
byteries; another, the Independents, held the view that 
each single church should be independent and permitted 
to govern itself. In the dissenting factions the laity was 
a strong element; and all these sects saw in the State 
Church a common opponent. The State Church, again, 
had its own representatives in Parliament, and was in all 
disputes, ecclesiastical and secular, closely allied with the 
Tories and the king. 

The other series of causes was entirely political. When 
Charles I. in 1625 ascended the throne, he began at once 
to exercise his royal '^prerogatives" in a way that came 
into violent conflict with the growing sentiments of liberty 
throughout Great Britain. From the very earliest times 
the English monarchs had always had these prerogatives, 
powers by virtue of which the monarch was exempt from 
responsibility to any authority. He could, accordingly, 
convoke and dissolve Parliament whenever he saw fit. He 
could enter into treaties with foreign powers ; he was the 
chief commander of the English armies. But Charles I. 
carried these his " Divine Rights " as king so far that 
when Parliament would not grant him the revenue he 
required, he dissolved this body and proceeded to levy 
taxes without its consent. He resorted to forced loans. 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

" ship-money,'^ " benevolences," and other arbitrary meas- 
ures, committinji- to prison those who in any way dared 
to protest. 

The rights of the king in their relations to the rights 
of the people became matters of constant dispute. In 
order to define the limits of the prerogatives, Parliament 
sent the king in 1628 the "Petition of Right." This docu- 
ment insisted : 1. That taxes should not be levied in any 
form without the consent of Parliament; 2. That sol- 
diers and sailors should not be billeted in private houses 
"against the laws and customs of the realm" ; 3. That no 
one should be imprisoned arbitrarily; and, 4. That there 
should be no martial law in times of peace. Charles 
assented to this petition, but soon after continued in his 
arbitrary way of extorting revenue. Parliament again 
protested, but was dissolved. During the next eleven 
years (1629-1640) no Parliament was called, and the king 
governed virtually alone, aided only by such men as Arch- 
bishop Laud, who tried to bring the influence of the 
church to the king's support, and Strafford, who proved 
a willing instrument of the monarch in providing men 
and means. The king and his advisers made use of the 
" High Commission " and the " Star Chamber " to decide 
troublesome cases arising out of the growing dissatisfaction 
among the people. 

Finally, in 1640, the situation became so critical that 
a new Parliament had to be called. With this Charles 
soon found himself in open hostility. The rights of the 
people, united with Puritanic views in ecclesiastical mat- 
ters, were embodied in Parliament with Cromwell as 
leader. The king's party was composed of Tories, who 



12 INTEODtrCTION. 

also stood for the tenets of the State Church. These two 
factions were now arrayed against each other in civil war. 
The king fled from London, and surrounded himself with 
Cavalier troops. A series of engasrements followed, in" 
which the Cavaliers were driven into hard straits; and 
finally, after the decisive battle at JSTaseby, the king found 
himself compelled to surrender to the Scotch. These de- 
livered him to the English. The king was tried before 
a revolutionary tribunal, pronounced guilty, and executed 
in January, 1649. 

The government of England was now decreed to be " by 
way of a republic." The Council of State, in March, 
1649, made Milton Secretary for Eoi-ign Tongues. Mil- 
ton was selected for this office because he was one of the 
abjest scholars in Latin, the language of diplomacy of his 
day. He could, moreover, be relied upon to conduct the 
business intrusted to him as secretary in the spirit of the 
newly organized government. But his services were soon 
required in a broader capacity. The Royalists in a num- 
ber of pamphlets attacked the Puritans on account of 
their actions against the king. One of these pamphlets, 
" Eikon Basilike," the " King's Image," was ably written, 
and the Puritans thought if they left it unanswered, it 
would be damaging to their cause. Milton was selected 
to write a reply, which he did, and the result was a tract 
called " Eikonoclastes," the " Image-Breakers." In this 
he bitterly and, it must be confessed, rudely dealt with 
the pious sentiments professing to originate with the late 
king. The polemic contest was continued. Salmasius, 
a Latin scholar of Leyden, wrote another treatise, Defen- 
sio Begia, which Milton answered in Defensio pro populo 



INTRODUCTION". 13 

Anglicano. This controversy was carried on in a spirit of 
violent animosity, in which personal abuse often took the 
place of argument. In this contest the two writers suf- 
fered personally. For many years previous, Milton's eye- 
sight had been failing, and in the labor entailed by prepar- 
ing these pamphlets he became entirely blind. Salmasius 
also, finding himself worsted, and vexed at having his 
Latin style attacked, took sick, and shortly afterwards 
died. 

In his domestic relations, Milton had also undergone 
many tribulations. The differences with his first wife 
had been serious enough to prompt him to write several 
treatises on divorce, and to contemplate the annulling of 
the marriage. These troubles were, however, settled, and 
he lived apparently happy with his wife until her death, 
in 1652. His second wife lived only a short time after 
their marriage; so that in 1658 Milton was again a 
widower, blind, and with three daughters who proved to 
b>j of very little comfort to him. 

In addition, the political upturnings which took place 
about this time not only deprived him of his standing, 
but brought him into imminent personal distress and dan- 
ger. Oliver Cromwell, the Protector, died in 1658; and 
his son and successor, Richard, proved quite incompetent 
to shoulder the responsibilities borne by his father. There 
began to be felt a strong sentiment in favor of recalling 
the fugitive Prince Charles from France, and thereby to 
restore the throne to the House of the Stuarts. This res- 
toration was brought about in 1660, and England once 
more entered upon an era under the old dynasty. The 
Cavaliers, remembering the bitter humiliations suffered 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

at the hands of the Puritans, at onc*e gave vent to their 
feelings in unrestrained measures of revenge. Milton, 
who had heen. conspicuously identified with the Puritan 
cause, was constrained to keep in hiding in the house of 
a friend in London. How it came about that he was not, 
like so many others, summarily dealt with, is not to this 
day fully cleared up. His personal safety was legally 
assured by the passage, in 1660, of the Act of Indemnity, 
a measure which limited the prosecution to certain 
specified persons. 

Milton's career ran parallel with the political events of 
his country. With the Restoration began a third period, 
in which he again came before the public, though not as 
a writer on political issues. He summoned up once more 
the poetic visions of his early years, and gave them form 
in immortal epics. Themes relating to Paradise and the 
Fall of Man had attracted him years before. In 1667 
appeared " Paradise Lost," and three years later " Para- 
dise Regained," and " Samson Agonistes." Though ren- 
dered helpless through blindness, his mind was stored 
with riches of learning in nearly all departments of 
knowledge. These stores he worked into verse, and by 
the aid of friends, notably young Elwood, Andrew Mar- 
veil, and Cyriac Skinner, got them into written form. 

His last years were often clouded in gloom. His 
daughters found it irksome to read to him in languages 
which they did not understand. The gout and other 
bodily pains troubled him. His third wife proved a true 
helpmate to him, however, and cared for him tenderly 
till his death, in 1674. 

The first period of his literary work, which comprises 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

chiefly poetic productions, ends with the year 1639. 
Among the works composed up to that date were the fol- 
lowing : 

Paraphrase on Psalms CXIV, and CXXXVI. 
Some Early Sonnets. 
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity. 
L'Allegro. 
II Penseroso. 
Comus. 
Lycidas. 

The Arcades. Part of an Entertainment. 
The Epistle to Manso. 
During the second period (1640-1660), Milton wrote 
prose, and upon issues that were agitating the minds of 
the people at the time. His subjects were mainly those 
that related to Theology and Church Government, Educa- 
tion, Politics as Related to Civil and Religious Liberty. 
Among these works are: 

Of Reformation touching Church-discipline in Eng- 
land. 

Of Prelatical Episcopacy. 

Animadversions u]:)on the Remonstrant's Defence 
against Smectymnuus. 

The Reason of Church Government Urged against 
Prelacy, 

The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. 
The Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce. 
Areopagitica : a Speech by Mr. John Milton for the 
Liberty of Unlicensed Printing. 
Tetrachordon. 
Colasterion. 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. 
Eikonoclastes. 

Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio. 
Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda. 
A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Cases. 
The third period (1GG0-1G7-1) includes his greatest 
Avorks, the epics with which he has enriched not only 
English literature, but the literature of the world. 
Paradise Lost (IGGT). 
Paradise Regained (1670). 
Samson Agonistes (1G70). 



Thomas Babingtow Macatjlay was born in Leicester- 
shire, England, in 1800. At the age of eight he attempted 
intellectual work quite beyond the ambition usual to a 
child of such years. He composed a " Compendium of 
Universal History," in wdiich events are set forth not with- 
out evidence of earnest efforts at order of arrangement. 
After receiving instruction in a private academy, he en- 
tered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1818. Here he won 
a prize for an " Essay on William III." He also made 
some contributions to Knight's Quarterly. In 1825 he 
published in the Edinhurgli Review a contribution that at 
once brought him into prominence as a literary man— the 
" Essay on Milton." 

In politics, Macaulay was a Whig. He entered Par- 
liament in 1830, and at once became an earnest advocate 
for political reforms. Afterwards he held many offices 
of honor and responsibility. He was appointed a mem- 
ber of the Supreme Council of India, and selected for the 
task of drawing up a penal code for that country. 



INTRODUCTION". 17 

In order to accomplish this work he spent the years 
1834-1838 in India. After his return to England he 
was again elected to Parliament, and continued to be a 
member of this body till 1856, when the work on his 
" History of England " made it necessary for him to 
resign his seat. The following year he was made Baron 
Macaulay of Rothley Temple. His health had been 
gradually failing, but, anxious to push the work on the 
history, he continued his labors up to the time of his 
death, which occurred in 1859. 

His literary work comprises, besides the History of 
England, a large number of essays on literary and po- 
litical topics. Among these are essays on Milton, Bunyan, 
Byron, Johnson, Miraheau, Walpole, Bacon, Lord Clive, 
Leigh Hunt, Lord Holland, Hastings, Frederick the 
Great, Madame D'Arblay, and Addison. In poetry his 
most notable performance is Lays of Ancient Borne. 



IS STUDY-PLAN. 



STUDY- PLAN OF MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON" 

MILTOK 



INTERPEETATIVE STUDIES. 

THE AUTHOE^S PURPOSE. 

First of all, the essay should be read for its content, 
and for an exact understanding of its scope and purpose. 
This reading should be a connected and attentive perusal, 
without any interruption by difficulties of the text. In 
this first reading, the pupil should come into possession 
of Macaulay's opinion regarding the chief excellence of 
each of Milton's poetic works taken up in the essay. He 
should know how the poet was drawn into the political 
struggles in England, and how his work as an author was, 
in consequence, directed into new channels and given a 
distinctive tone. 

The questions here should be framed in such a way as 
to test the pupil's mastery of the subject-matter: How 
much of the essay is introductory ? What subjects and 
facts are here treated ? What is the author's aim in the 
introduction ? How much is included in the next dis- 
tinct division of the essay ? What arguments are adduced 
in support of his proposition that "as civilization ad- 
vances, poetry almost alwa,^^ necessarily declines" ? In 
what way does his demonstration of this proposition bear 
on Milton's rank as an author ? 

After having read the text and mastered the content, 
an effort should be made to state carefully, in written 



STUDY-PLAN". 



19 



form, the task that the author set himself in writing the 
essay. We can only judge of the author's success in 
attaining his purpose hy knowing what he intended to do ; 
this gives us a rational point of departure at the same 
time that it affords a constant corrective in our further 
work. 

THE author's point OF VIEW. 

The author chooses some one position with reference 
to the subject before him ; he holds a personal relation, 
or attitude, towards it, which will to some extent explain 
both his opinions and the manner in which they are pre- 
sented. Is Macaulay's point of view that of a critic who 
simply examines the writings placed before him, with 
complete indifference as to the result ? Perhaps he shows 
a keen personal interest, which inclines him towards pre- 
senting it in one light rather than in another, or to write 
in one way rather than in another. Is the essay largely 
argumentative and polemic in character ? If so', does it 
take this character from the writer's natural bent, or from 
opinions which he feels prompted to combat ? Does the 
author seem inclined to present Milton's career as a writer 
and as a citizen in a favorable light ? 

FACTS BEAEING ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH IT 
WAS WRITTEN. 

Ascertain the author's personal bent in his studies as 
well as in political and social matters. Was Macaulay's 
position in politics such as to dispose him favorably or 
unfavorably towards the Puritanic regime ? In litera- 
ture, were his preferences of a kind to give rise to preju- 
dice in judging Milton's writings ? What was his age at 



20 STUDY-PLAN. 

the time of writing this essay? He had early taken an 
interest in public questions discussed by men of note at his 
father's house, and given evidence of patriotism and love 
of freedom. It is asserted that he knew " Pilgrira"'s 
Progress " and " Paradise Lost " by heart ; he must in 
consequence have been strongly attached to the literature 
that represented Puritan thought. What was the standard 
authority during Macaulay's day for critical estimates of 
Milton ? Is this authority satisfactory so far as regards 
impartial views and judgments? For the main facts of 
Macaulay's literary and political career, Trevelyan's Life 
and Letters of Macaulay (Harpers) is a standard work; 
so is also Morison's Macaulay in the English Men of Let- 
ters Series (Harpers). 

FACTS BEARING ON THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF THE ESSAY. 

To follow his discussion closely, it is necessary to have 
read L'Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, and at least some 
portions of Paradise Lost; for instance. Books I, II, and 
IX. Some knowledge of Dante is also essential. Stand- 
ard translations are those of Carey, Longfellow, and 
Plumptre; iSTorton's prose translation is excellent for stu- 
dents. Green's History of England (or a similar work) 
should be studied for information about the Puritans, 
the Civil War, the Restoration, and the events of the 
Revolution of 1688. Exercises like these should be 
worked out : In view of the obvious purpose of the essay, 
what justification can be offered for devoting so much of 
it to English history and politics ? Wliat were the dis- 
tinguishing characteristics of the Puritans ? Give a brief 
account of the political struggles in England between the 



STUDY-PLAN. 21 

years 1642-1660. How was Milton drawn into the vortex 
of these struggles ? What new direction did it give his 
literary labors ? Give the three periods into which Mil- 
ton's literary activity falls. What are the distinguishing 
characteristics of each ? 

TEXTUAL. 

The essay is singularly free from difficulties arising 
from obscure and involved constructions or antiquated 
verbal forms. But though Macaulay is eminently clear, 
his pages constantly offer suggestions for research. These 
are references and allusions to history, antiquity, mythol- 
ogy, literature, geography, tradition, politics, and soci- 
ology. If the student were to look up all of these without 
discrimination, his attention would be drawn away from 
the really significant facts and features of the production. 
The casual mention of "Filicaja," for instance, should 
not compel him to interrupt his task and take up instead 
the biography of this author. He will either know or 
infer from the context that this is an Italian poet, and 
Macaulay states that he was remarkable for "ingenuity of 
thought " ; this is quite sufficient for the pupil's imme- 
diate needs; and further study of him should be taken 
up in some other connection. It may be well to under- 
stand, also, the writer's characteristic way of making use 
of these illustrations. He usually takes pains to have 
them made clear and serviceable by the context. Take the 
sentence, " The dexterous Capuchins never choose to 
preach on the life and miracles of a saint till they have 
awakened the devotional feelings of their auditors by ex- 
hibiting some relic of him — a thread of his garment, a 



22 STUDY-PLAN. 

lock of his hair, or a drop of his blood." In its connec- 
tion here, the term " Capuchins " serves the purpose of a 
cpncrete illustration just as effectively whether we know 
that it stands for an order of Franciscan monks or not. . 

There is another class of references, however, that are 
employed in such a way as to become organically of a 
piece with the subject-matter. '^ The only poem of modern 
times that can be compared with Paradise Lost is the 
Divine Comedy." Since the Divine Comedy becomes the 
basis of Macaulay's famous comparison between Milton 
and Dante, the student must know something about it. 
For a complete appreciation, he should be so familiar 
with it as to be able to follow the comparison point for 
point. — Make clear the contrast in the reference to Man- 
deville and lago. What are premises ? Examine the 
thought and logic of the sentence, " So intense and ardent 
was the fire of his mind, that it not only was not suffo- 
cated beneath the weight of fuel, but penetrated the 
whole superincumbent mass with its own heat and ra- 
diance" (T[19). Explain and discuss also the follow- 
ing : " He electrifies the mind through conductors " 
(21); "He strikes the keynote, and expects his hearers 
to make out the melody" (21); "The dialogue was en- 
grafted on the chorus, and naturally partook of its charac- 
ter" (26); "There are several minor poems of Milton 
on which we would willingly make a few remarks" (30). 
Tell what poems are meant in the preceding sentence; 
also, state whether they should be dismissed with such a 
notice as this. Elaborate into their full significance the 
specific terms in this sentence : " The prejudices of the 
Synagogue, and the pride of the Portico, and the fasces 



STUDY-PLAN. 23 

of the Lictor, and the swords of thirty legions were 
humbled in the dust" (38). Who is the character, 
Beatrice, mentioned in 40 ? What was the age of Mil- 
ton at the time of writing Paradise Lost ? 

APPRECIATIONS. 

STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ESSAY. 

A discussion of this topic leads to an estimate of the 
author's scope and grasp of his subject, its general 
arrangement, balance of parts, digressions, if any, and 
points of form that seem to be individual in character. 
Indicate the two grand divisions, and state briefly the 
content of each. For the topic of the entire essay, see the 
last sentence of paragraph 7. The topic of the first divi- 
sion may be stated as " Milton's genius and rank as an 
author." Give the principal subdivisions of this. What 
is the subject Avitli which the second grand division deals ? 
What is Macaulay's justification for making the second 
half of the essay so largely historical ? Give the order in 
which he takes up and examines Milton's works. Are 
there any unwarranted digressions in this portion of the 
work ? See especially Macaulay's speculations about 
supernatural agencies. Macaulay has been charged with 
abruptness and lack of natural transitions from one topic 
to another. Find examples illustrating his way of intro- 
ducing the subjects of paragraphs. Does he habitually 
introduce the topic in any certain part of the paragraph ? 
Do the preceding statements lead us to expect just that 
topic ? Select a number of sentences that may be taken as 
typical examples of the sentence structure peculiar to the 



24 STUDY- PLAN. 

author; note also their variety, how tliey are collocated 
so as to avoid monotony, and how they are adapted to the 
subject treated. 

Discuss the first seven paragraphs, and note how well 
they serve the purpose of an introduction by leading the 
author naturally to his subject. In what way does he in- 
dicate the field he intends to traverse in the essay ? What 
is his abject in giving so much space to a discussion of the 
relative difficulties of writing poetry in an early uncivil- 
ized age and in a modern age ? (10-20.) 

RANGE OF KEFERENCES AND ALLUSIONS. 

An estimate should be made to indicate the vast numl)er 
of sources laid under contribution for illustrations. There 
are references to more than two hundred noted persons. 
Find the number of allusions and references that would 
be grouped under one of the following heads : History, 
Theology, Poetry, Law, Mythology. Are there any 
references to discoveries in science, to science in gen- 
eral, or to the inventions made before 1825 ? Find ten 
references that you tliink particularly felicitous, giving 
reasons. Find also cases that you would criticize. 

ILLUSTRATIONS AND FIGURES. 

One of the secrets of Macaulay's clearness and force 
is, that he has always at command some telling illustra- 
tion or some striking figure to make his argument appar- 
ently conclusive. In paragraph 18 he sets out to prove 
that Milton's Latin verse was, contrary to the opinion of 
Dr. elolinson, superior to that of Cowley. The assertion 
makes it necessary to impeach Johnson as a judge of 
Latin verse. Johnson, he says, had studied the bad 



STUDY-PI AN. 25 

writers of Latin, and had, in consequence, spoiled his 
taste. But this assertion would be quite inconclusive if 
he had not enforced it by the simile, that " he was as ill 
qualified to judge between two Latin styles as a habitual 
drunkard to set up for a wine-taster." 

Analyze the following figures and illustrations in such 
a way as to make clear what the author actually gains by 
their use: 

"No man, whatever his," etc. (1-t) ; allusion to the 
Arabian tale (22) ; " Every epithet is a text for a stanza " 
(24); "He substitutes crutches for stilts," etc. (2G) ; 
"Indeed, the caresses which this partiality, etc. (27); 
" Llis muse had no objection," etc. (2-8) ; " The poetry of 
Milton differs," etc. (32). 

Examine a number of paragraphs and ascertain whether 
Macaulay shows preference for any one form of illustra- 
tion or kind of figure. Note also how he makes an un- 
familiar illustration clear and serviceable. In 32 we have 
the sentence : " The poetry of Milton differs from that of 
Dante as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differ from the 
picture-writing of Mexico." The reader can hardly be 
expected to be more familiar with the hieroglyphics of 
Egypt and the picture-writing of Mexico than with the 
works of Dante and Milton ; yet this illustration should 
make clear an important distinction between the two 
authors. And this is accomplished by a few hints in the 
succeeding sentences which make both the illustration and 
the thing illustrated clear. Another case of the same kind 
is found in 35, " The narrative of Milton in this respect 
differs," etc. Find other cases of the same kind. 



26 STUDY-PLAN. 

PARALLELISMS. 

Wlien Macaulay adduces a series of facts and illustra- 
tions in support of a tlieuie, lie takes pains to present tliem 
in a group of sentences similarly constructed. In para- 
graph 65, for example, there is an array of facts mar- 
shalled into line in this way. " The enemies of the Par- 
liament, indeed, rarely choose to take issue on the great 
points of the question. They content," etc. Find other 
examples of the same kind. For the advantages of such 
parallelism and caution in the use of it, see Genung's 
Rhetoric, p. 191. 

MANAGEMENT OF ANTITHESIS. 

One secret of the striking effect produced by him lies 
in his manner of conducting a continuous antithesis 
throughout an entire paragraph. In this way the sentence 
structure assists in giving point to his comparisons. With 
the effect aimed at steadily in mind, he not only builds up 
the comparison in two distinct series of antithetically con- 
structed sentences, but he brings its two sides together, one 
exaggerated in one direction, the other in another. In 
paragraph 13 we have an example of this kind; another 
instance of it is the famous comparison between Milton 
and Dante, in paragraph 32. Find other instances of the 
same kind. State your view as to the value of the com- 
parative method of reaching estimates of authors. 

THE author's manner OF PRESENTING HIS THOUGHT. 

Ilis assertions are generally made with an assurance 
that seems to admit of no question or doubt. He is im- 
patient of qualifications, and as to possible objections, he 



STUDY-PLAN. 



27 



either ignores them or brushes them lightly aside. Dis- 
posing of objections before stating his views (52, 57, 66, 
67). Presenting his views first and supporting them by 
an array of facts and details gradually leading up to the 
point he has in mind (11, 14, 39). Making clever illus- 
trations do duty as argaunents. " Little Red Riding-hood " 
(14); reference to the "Mohawk" (15); last sentence 
of 18; last sentence of 21; "Let them lay their finger 
on a single article," etc. (56). Bringing his views into 
relief by presenting them in connection with a parallel 
case ; " We confidently afiirm," etc. (51). Find additional 
instances of each of these procedures. ISTote cases where 
he states the proposition in the form of a paradox. Point 
out propositions that seem to require qualification. 

THE AUTIIOR^S USE OF COMPARISONS. 

The author's constant use of comparisons is an attempt 
to reach as definite a standard of measurement as possi- 
ble to apply to the object he criticizes. In a field where 
absolute standards are impossible an approximate estimate 
may yet be reached by comparing things similar in kind. 
In this way one becomes a measure of the other. Com- 
parison between Comus and Samson Agonistes (25) ; 
Paradise Lost and the Divine Comedy (31-42) ; the 
Revolution of 1688 and the Rebellion of 1642. Find 
other instances where the same method is employed. 
Note to what extent clearness of impression is attained 
through the use of this method. Note also, as in the works 
mentioned, that significant differences as well as similari- 
ties are brought to light. 



28 STUDY-PLAN. 

ANALYSES OF ARGUMENTS. 

In 12 we read: "But language, the machine of the 
poet, is best fitted for his purposes in its rildest state." 
In what sense is language the machine of the poet ? What, 
then, is the material upon which this machine operates ? 
Is the metaphor convincing; i. e., are we ready to accept 
the assumption contained in the statement that a machine 
is best fitted for its purposes in its rudest state? Is 
language in a rude state richer in poetic expressions ? 
Does not every succeeding poet enrich language with 
respect to poetic expressions ? Are words in a rude state 
employed to convey what may be regarded as more poetic 
ideas ? The trend hi the argument is, that in a rude state 
language is employed to convey ideas immediately asso- 
ciated with impressions made on the senses. Tlie func- 
tion of poetry is to impart ideas of this kind. In a more 
advanced state, language is largely employed to carry 
philosophical concepts, and is to that extent less fitted for 
the poet's purposes. 

Analyze in the same way the proposition argued in 
paragraph 13 : '' Generalization is necessary to the ad- 
vancement of knowledge, but particuLarity is indis- 
pensable to the creations of the imagination." But it is 
the attention to particulars that prepares the way for gen- 
eralizations. How would you modify the second half of 
the proposition % 

In paragra]ih 17 the argument would lead us to sup- 
pose that Milton may justly be called a great poet because 
he overcame successfully the obstacles mentioned in the 
first three sentences. Did Milton in any sense take to 



STUDY-PLAN. 29 

pieces tlie whole web of his mind ? Did he unlearn much 
of his knowledge? Does Macaulay prove that Milton's 
classical knowledge was in any way a hindrance to him? 
Did Wordsworth, for instance, succeed as well when he 
wrote in accordance with the principle laid down in this 
argument as he did when he ignored it ? 

Paragraphs 25-29. The argument here should be closely 
followed. Why does the author lay stress on just these 
two species of composition — the drama and the ode ? 
How does the characterization of the Greek dramatists 
in 26 bear on the main argument ? In what way was Mil- 
ton's veneration for Euripides injurious to " Samson 
Agonistes" ? Explain how Milton was led to attempt the 
impossible task of reconciling these two elements in " Sam- 
son Agonistes." 

THE author's definition OF POETEY." 

Bring together from paragraphs 14-18 the statements 
by means of which Macaulay defines or describes poetry. 
His definition turns on the word " illusion." What is its 
exact meaning here ? Is poetry adequately described by 
limiting it to " the art of employing words" ? Mention 
some poems that you think would be included in the 
definition and some that would be excluded from it. In 
Avliat way is the definition evidently based on the discus- 
sion in 12—13 ? Mention some other points that you think 
ought to be included in a definition of poetry. 

OPINIONS AS A CRITIC. 

" The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Mil- 
ton is the remoteness of the associations by means of 
which it acts on the reader" (21). Explain Macaulay's 



30 STUDY-PLAN. 

meaning, and verify the assertion by citing passages from 
Paradise Lost; for instance, I. 46, 57, 72, 73, 91, etc. 
Does this characterization hold good also of L'Allegro and 
II Penseroso? In the two poems just mentioned, has he 
pointed out the most distinguishing qualities ? 

Whom does he have in mind when he says, " There are 
many critics, and some of great name, who contrive in 
the same breath to extol the poems and to decry the 
poet" (8) ? Wliat is the difference in critical opinion 
between Macaulay and Dr. Johnson as brought out in the 
discussion in paragraph 39 ? Examine the biographies 
of Milton and Dante, and judge wdiether there exists in 
fact the parallelism stated in 45 : " Milton w^as, like Dante, 
a statesman and a lover, — and, like Dante, he had been 
unfortunate in ambition and in love." Are Macaulay's 
opinions on literary and political questions new and 
strange, or are they in accord with common views ? 

POLITICAL OPINIONS. 

Without going into the details of such a large subject, 
it is yet necessary, in order to reach a correct estimate of 
Macaulay, to know something about the principal differ- 
ences between the two great political parties of his day. 

To which of the two leading parties did he evidently 
belong? To Avhich party did another noted critic of Mil- 
ton, Dr. Johnson, evidently belong? Do Macaulay's 
opinions in politics to any extent affect his opinions of 
Milton ? 

In the latter part of the essay, wdiich deals mainly with 
Milton's political career, the author's owm views are most 
apparent. Discuss his personal attitude to his subject as 



STUDY-PLAN. 31 

admitted in 52. Wliat appears to be tlie main reason for 
his avowed opposition to the principles and practices of 
the Cavaliers? What, on the other hand, is his reason 
for championing the cause of the Puritans? In dealing 
with the historical events connected with the Rebellion 
and the Great Revolution, does the author's zeal lead him 
to exaggerate or to minimize effects ? Cite instances. 
Wliat principles apparent in Milton's political career and 
in his conduct as a citizen receive Macaulay's greatest 
approbation ? Cite passages from the essay to corroborate 
your views. 

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ESSAY. 

This should be a brief summary embodying the result 
reached in the foregoing discussion of the content and 
form. Is the essay more significant as a presentation of 
valuable subject-matter than it is as an example of a bril- 
liant style and skill in argumentation? For a contrast 
in form and sentence structure, compare it with some 
selection from De Quincey. It is also instructive to com- 
pare its general tone and its manner of presenting the 
thought with the prose of Arnold, Carlyle, Newman, 
Walter Pater, and Emerson. To comprehend fully the 
vast field over which Macaulay's intellect ranges, it is 
useful to institute some proportion between him and other 
writers in respect to the number of historical personages 
about whom he, in one way or another, furnishes informa- 
tion; in the same way an estimate may be made regard- 
ing the variety of sources that supply him with illustra- 
tions and references. 



32 STUDY-PLAN. 

EXERCISES. 

WOEDS^ PHKASES^ AND IDIOMS. ' 

In paragraj)hs 8-20 select those words tliat are remark- 
able for vigor, aptness, point, or force. 

Define and explain twenty words that you regard as 
desirable additions to your vocabulary. Illustrate the use 
of each by a sentence. 

Copy into your note-book ten useful words from the 
portion assigned. Look them up in the dictionary, and 
transcribe them carefully, giving the syllabication, dia- 
critical marks, and accents. Copy the definitions and 
also sentences illustrating the meaning of each word. 

In order that the pupil may be encouraged to increase 
his vocabulary systematically, let him be requested to find 
out the number of words used by noted writers. Macaulay, 
for instance, uses six thousand ; Miltmi, nine thousand ; 
Shakespeare, fifteen thousand. On the other hand, the 
number of words used by average men and women is 
only about eight hundred. Let the pupil form an estimate 
showing what his own vocabulary would be if he were to 
add six words to it every day during his school course. 

Mark passages containing suggestive expressions, and 
elaborate these into their full meaning. To this class be- 
long " academical Pharisees " (3) ; " quartos " (6) ; "lach- 
rymal glands" (13); "sportive exercise for which the 
genius of Milton ungirds itself" (19). 

Count the entire number of words in paragraphs 20-25. 
Count the same number of words in a composition of your 
own, and note how many words are repeated in each case. 

Eecord cases where the author has employed bookish 



STUDY-PLAN. 33 

words or foreign words for which native expressions might 
be substituted. 

Note six good English idioms. Can other words or 
expressions be substituted for them ? 

Write out as correct and logical a definition as you can 
of an idiom. Give typical examples in illustration. 

Write a short composition on the proper uses and effects 
of specific words and general terms respectively. 

Count the words of paragraphs 26-28, and note the pro- 
portion of Anglo-Saxon words and Latin words found. 
Remember the two ways of making such enumerations: 
(a) To count every word as often as it occurs. This 
method will give one result, (h) To count no word or 
form of the same word twice will give another. 

Subjects for composition in connection with the study 
of words: How Can a Student Best Enrich his Vocabu- 
lary ? Tlie jSTote-Book as an Aid to Word Studies. How 
to Use the Dictionary. The Relative Value of the Dic- 
tionary and Literature respectively for purposes of In- 
creasing one's Vocabulary. 

SEISTTENCE STRUCTURE. 

Point out and discuss the characteristics of six sentences 
which may be taken as typical examples of Macaulay's 
sentence structure. 

Give six examples of sentences which may be taken as 
models of excellence in construction. Explain, so far as 
possible, their specific points of excellence. 

Mark ten examples of the loose sentence. Append a 
discussion of its nature and character as compared with 



34 STUDY-PLAN". 

other types. What cautions should be observed in regard 
to its use ? 

Ten examples of the periodic sentence. Discuss its use 
as in the preceding exercise. Show that the frequent 
em])loyment of the jieriod counteracts tendencies towards 
diffuseness and verl)ositj in sentence structure. 

Ten examples of the balanced sentence, noting carefully 
its parallelisms — parallel phrases and clauses. 

Compare it with other types for elegance, rhythm, har- 
mony, antithetical effect. In what connection can it be 
used to the best advantage ? Arguments, description, by 
the comparison of objects, etc. 

Record ten cases where the connection is formed by the 
use of conjunctions or conjunctive adverbs: hence, there- 
fore, again, moreover, thus, there, when, because, etc. 

Ten cases where the connection is formed by the use of 
pronominals: these, this, that, those, all, others, such, etc. 

Ten cases where the connection is formed by the repeti- 
tion of some important word from the preceding sentence. 

Cases where no formal connectives are used. Examine 
carefully the structure of the context in which connectives 
may be entirely omitted. As connectives form the hinges 
on which sentences turn, none are needed where the 
thought moves straight forward ; there the connection is 
obvious, and they are simply in the way if inserted. 

Ascertain approximately the average length of the 
sentences in three consecutive paragraphs. Cite passages 
in illustration of Macaulay's judicious employment of 
long and short sentences. 



STUDY-PLAN. 35 

THE PARAGEAPH. 

The JSTature of the Paragraph. Point out the 
analogy between the general structure of the sentence — sub- 
ject, predicate, complement — and the paragraph — the 
topic, the topic defined and established, the topic applied. 
The composition as a whole presents the same threefold 
division. These common characteristics should be illus- 
trated and discussed. In studying the paragraph, great 
aid is furnished by such works as Baldwin's " The Exposi- 
tory Paragraph and Sentence " (Longmans, Green & Co.) ; 
Scott and Denney's Composition-Rhetoric" (Allyn & 
Bacon) ; Genung's Practical Elements of Rhetoric " 
(Ginn&Co.). 

Coherence in the Paragraph. Select a typical para- 
graph, not too brief, and study it with reference to the 
manner in which the sentences are joined. Does the 
author make constant use of formal connectives ? Does his 
sentence adjustment result in perfect compactness and 
clearness ? 

Unity. Test the paragraph for unity by summing up 
its content into one proposition. For this purpose take 
paragraphs 12, 15, 19, 80, 89. If it is difficult to sum 
it up, strict unity has not been adhered to; the sense of 
it either points two or more ways or the subject has become 
concealed under illustrations that do not bear directly on 
it. In many cases the author announces his subject and 
then proceeds to clear away a number of objections before 
he goes on with the proofs and illustrations he has in mind. 

Transitions. Compare several paragraphs, and note 
whether the transitions from one division of the subject 
to another have been made with due regard to smoothness 



36 STUDY-PLAN. 

(38-39; 57-58; 8-i-85). Instances of abrupt or jerkj 
transitions (37-38; 87-88). 

Analysis of the Paragkapii. In Genung's Working 
Principles of Rhetoric is given an outline which may be 
followed in making the anal^^sis. Paragraphs suitable for 
this purpose are such as 22 (''We often hear of the magical 
influence," etc.), and 32 ("'The poetry of Milton differs," 
etc. ) . 

(a) Find the topic sentence. If the topic is not dis- 
tinctly stated, it may always be deduced from a carefully 
constructed paragraph and formulated into a proposition. 

(6) Point out sentences that define the topic. These 
contain a restatement of the topic, a contrasting state- 
ment or an explanation of it. 

(c) Point out what is needed to establish the topic. 
These are sentences containing examples, illustrations, 
particulars, or proofs. 

(d) Find next what is needed to apply the topic. These 
consist of summaries, consequences, or enforcements. 
Most paragraphs do not have all these divisions ; the last 
one, especially, is often omitted. 

Let the sentences of a paragraph (31, 36, 43, 46, 49 
or 89) be broken up and separated, and then grouped 
together at random. Require the pupils to rearrange them 
with the view of restoring the paragraph to its original 
form, keeping carefully in mind the requirements of logic, 
unity, coherence, and emphasis. 

When a series of paragraphs has been studied so that 
the train of thought is fully mastered, the topic sentence 
of a paragraph may be given and the pupil called upon to 
write it out in full. The scale of treatment and the length 
of the paragraph may also be indicated. 



'■b^ 



SUMMARY. 37 



SITMMAEY. 

The main results reached in the study of this essay 
should be written out in full. Sum up under the follow- 
ing heads what you consider the most valuable discipline 
or lesson a young writer may get from this study. Make 
the summary brief and definite. Take up only what you 
consider the most important points. 

1. Style: Here state some practically useful facts 
that you have learned about the choice of words, the use 
of idioms, the construction of sentences and paragraphs. 

2. Mastery of Suhject-M alter: State your impressions 
as to the relation that a thorough mastery of the subject- 
matter has to successful writing. 

3. Suggestions for Further Study: Mention some one 
line or several lines of literary study suggested to you by 
the reading of this essay. State as (definitely as you can 
just what you would like to take up, and what you would 
want to do with it. Mention also the practical results you 
would aim to reach. 



MILTON. 



Joann'is Mlltoni, Angli, de Doctrlna Christiana libri duo 
posthumi. A treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled 
from the Holy Scriptures alone. By John Milton^ 
translated from the original by Charles R. Sumner, 
M.A., etc., etc., 1825^ 

1. Towards the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon, 
deputy keeper of the state papers, in the course of his 
researches among the presses of his office, met with a large 
Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected copies 
of the foreign despatches written by Milton while he filled 
the office of Secretary^, and several papers relating to the 
Popish Trials- and the Eye-house Plot^. The whole was 
wrapped up in an envelope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner, 
Merchant. On examination the large manuscript proved 
to be the long-lost Essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, 
which, according to Wood^ and Toland'^, Milton finished 
after the Restoration, and deposited with Cyriac Skinner^. 
Skinner, it is well knowm, held the same political opinions 
Avith his illustrious friend. It is therefore probable, as 
Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he may have fallen under the 
suspicions of the government during that persecution of 
the Whigs which followed the dissolution of the Oxford 
Parliament, and that, in consequence of a general seizure 
of his papers, this work may have been brought to the office 
in which it has been found. But whatever the adventures 

(39) 



40 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

of the manuscript may have been, no doubt can exist that 
it is a genuine relic of the great poet. 

2. Mr, Sumner, who was commanded by His Majesty 
to edit and translate the treatise, has acquitted himself of 
his task in a manner honorable to his talents and to his 
character. His version is not, indeed, very easy or ele- 
gant; but it is entitled to the praise of clearness and 
fidelity. His notes abound with interesting quotations, 
and have the rare merit of really elucidating the text. The 
preface is evidently the work of a sensible and candid man, 
firm in his own religious opinions, and tolerant towards 
those of others. 

8. The book itself will not add much to the fame of 
Milton. It is, like all his Latin works, well written, 
though not exactly in the" style of the prize essays of 
Oxford and Cambridge^. There is no elaborate imitation 
of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none of the 
ceremonial cleanness which characterizes the diction of 
our academical Pharisees^. The author does not attempt 
to polish and brighten his composition into the Ciceronian 
gloss and brilliancy. He does not, in short, sacrifice sense 
and spirit to pedantic refinements. The nature of his sub- 
ject compelled him to use many words 

"That would have- made Qnintilian^ stare and gasp/" 

But he writes Avith as much ease and freedom as if Latin 
were his mother tongue; and, where he is least happy, 
his failure seems to arise from the carelessness of a native, 
not from the ignorance of a foreigner. We may apply to 
him what Denhani^ with great felicity says of Cowley'''. 
He wears the garb, but not the clothes, of the ancients. 



MILTON. 41 

4. Tlironghoiit the volume are discernible the traces of 
a powerful and independent mind, emancipated from the 
influence of authority, and devoted to the search of truth. 
Milton professes to form his system from the Bible alone ; 
and his digest of Scriptural texts is certainly among the 
best that have appeared. But he is not always so happy 
in his inferences as in his citations. 

5. Some of the heterodox doctrines which he avows seem 
to have excited considerable amazement, particularly his 
Arianism^, and his theory on the subject of polygamy. 
Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person could have 
read the Paradise Lost without suspecting him of the 
former; nor do we think that any reader, acquainted with 
the history of his life, ought to be much startled at the 
latter. The opinions which he has expressed respecting 
the nature of the I3city, the eternity of matter, and the 
observation of the Sabbath, might, we think, have caused 
more just surprise^. 

6. But we will not go into the discussion of these points. 
The book, were it far more orthodox or far more heretical 
than it is, w^ould not much edify or corrupt the present 
generation. The men of our time are not to be converted 
or perverted by quartos. A few more days, and this essay 
will follow the Defcnsio Populi to the dust and silence of 
the upper shelf. The name of its author, and the re- 
markable circumstances attending its publication, will 
secure to it a certain degree of attention. For a month or 
two it will occupy a few minutes of chat in every drawing- 
room, and a few columns in every magazine; and it will 
then, to l)orrow the elegant language of the playbills, be 
withdrawn, to make room for the forthcoming novelties. 



42 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

7. We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the interest, 
transient as it may be, which this work has excited. The 
dexterous Capuchins^ never choose to preach on the life 
and miracles of a saint till they have awakened the devo- 
tional feelings of their auditors by exhibiting some relic 
of him, a thread of his garment, a lock of his hair, or a 
drop of his blood. On the same principle, we intend to 
take advantage of the late interesting discovery, and, while 
this memorial of a great and good man is still in the hands 
of all, to say something of his moral and intellectual quali- 
ties. Nor, we are convinced, will the severest of our 
readers blame us if, on an occasion like the present, we 
turn for a short time from the topics of the day, to com- 
memorate, in all love and reverence, the genius and virtues 
of John Milton, the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, 
the glory of English literature, the champion and the 
martyr of English liberty^. 

8. It is by his poetry that Milton is best known ; and 
it is of his poetry that we wish first to speak. By the 
general suffrage of the civilized world, his place has been 
assigned among the greatest masters of the art. His de- 
tractors, however, though outvoted, have not been silenced. 
There are many critics, and some of great name, who con- 
trive in the same breath to extol the poems and to decry 
the poet. The Avorks they acloiowledge, considered in 
themselves, may be classed among the noblest productions 
of the human mind. But they will not allow the author 
to rank with those great luen who, born in the infancy of 
civilization, supplied, by their own powers, the want of 
instruction, and, though destitute of models themselves, 
bequeathed to posterity models which defy imitation. 



MILTOX. 43 

Milton, it is said, inherited what his predecessors created ; 
he lived in an enlightened age ; he received a finished 
education ; and we mnst, therefore, if we would form a 
just estimate of his powers, make large deductions in con- 
sideration of these advantages. 

9. We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as 
the remark may appear, that no poet has ever had to strug- 
gle with more unfa^'orable circumstances than Milton. He 
doubted, as he has himself owned, whether he had not been- 
born "an age too late." For this notion Johnson^ has 
thought fit to make him the butt of much clumsy ridicule^. 
The poet, we believe, understood the nature of his art 
better than the critic. He knew that his poetical genius 
derived no advantage from the civilization which sur- 
rounc^ed him, or from the learning which he had acquired ; 
and he looked back with something like regret to the ruder 
age o'f simple words and vivid impressions. 

10. We thiidv that, as civilization advances, poetry 
almost necessarily declines. Therefore, though we fer- 
vently admire those great works of imagination which 
have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them the 
more because they have appeared in dark ages. On the 
contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and S]dendid 
proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized 
age. We cannot understand why those who believe in that 
most orthodox article of literary faith, that the earliest 
poets are generally the best, should wonder at the rule as 
if it were the exception. Surely the uniformity of the 
phenomenon indicates a corresponding uniformity in the 
cause^. 

11. The fact is, that common observers reason from the 



44 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

progress of the experimental sciences to that of the imi- 
tative arts. The improvement of the former is gradual 
and slow. Ages are spent in collecting materials, ages more 
in separating and combining them. Even when a system 
has been formed, there is still something to add, to alter, 
or to reject. Every generation enjoys the use of a vast 
hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that 
hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. 
In these pursuits, therefore, the first' speculators lie under 
great disadvantages, and, even when they fail, are entitled 
to praise. Their pupils, with far inferior intellectual 
powers, speedily surpass them in actual -attainments. 
Every girl who has read Mrs. Marcet's little dialogiies on 
Political Economy and teach Montague^ or Walpole^ 
many lessons in finance. Any intelligent man may now, 
by resolutely applying himself for a few years to mathe- 
matics, learn more than the great Newton^ knew after half 
a century of study and meditation. 

12. But it is not thus with music, with painting, ,or 
with sculpture. Still less is it thus with poetry. The 
progress of refinement rarely supplies these arts with 
better objects of imitation. It may indeed improve the 
instruments which are necessary to the mechanical opera- 
tions of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. But 
language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his 
purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first 
perceive and then abstract. They advance from particular 
images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an en- 
lightened society is philosophical, that of a half -civilized 
people is poetical. 

13. This change in the language of men is partly the 



MILTON. 45 

cause and partly the effect of a corresponding change in 
the nature of their intellectual operations, of a change by 
which science gains and poetry loses. Generalization is 
necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particu- 
larity is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. 
In proportion as men know more and think more, they 
look less at individuals and more at classes. They there- 
fore make better theories and worse poems. They give 
us vague phrases instead of images, and personified quali- 
ties instead of men. Thej may be better able to analyze 
human nature than their predecessors. But analysis is not 
the business of the poet. His office is to portray, not to 
dissect. He may believe in a moral sense, like Shaftes- 
bury^ ; he may refer all human actions to self-interest, 
like Helvetius- ; or he may never think about the matter 
at all. His creed on such subjects will no more influence 
his poetry, properly so called, than the notions which a 
painter may have conceived respecting the lachrymal 
glands, or the circulation of the blood, will affect the 
tears of his Niobe^, or the blushes of his Aurora'*. If 
Shakespeare had written a book on the motives of human 
actions, it is by no means certain that it would have been 
a good one. It is extremely improbable that it would have 
contained half so much able reasoning on the subject as is 
to be found in the Fable of the Bees^. But could Mande- 
ville have created an lago® ? Well as he knew how to 
resolve characters into their elements, would he have been 
able to combine those elements in such a manner as to 
make up a man, a real, living, individual man ? 

14. Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy 



40 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

poetry, without a certain iinsoimdness of mind, if any- 
thing which gives so much pleasure ought to be called 
unsoundness. By poetry we mean not all writing in verse, 
nor even all good writing in verse. Our definition excludes 
many metrical compositions which, on other grounds, de- 
serve the highest praise. By poetry we mean the art of 
employing words in such a manner as to produce an illu- 
sion on the imagination, the art of doing by means of words i 
what the painter does by means of colors. Thus the great- 1 
est of poets has described it, in lines universally admired 
for the vigor and felicity of their diction, and still more 
valuable on account of the just notion Avhich they convey 
of the art in which he excelled: — 

"As imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to sliapes, and giA'es to airy nothing i 

A local habitation and a name/" 

These are the fruits of the " fine frenzy" which he ascribes j 
to the poet, — a fine frenzy, doubtless, but still a frenzy, i 
Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry; but it is the truth | 
of madness. The reasonings are just; but the premises • 
are false. After the first suppositions have been made, j 
everything ought to be consistent ; but those first supposi- 1 
tions require a degree of credulity which almost amounts i 
to a partial and temporary derangement of the intellect. 
Hence of all people children are the most imaginative. 
They abandon themselves without reserve to every illusion. [ 
Every image which is strongly presented to their mental 
eye produces on them the effect of reality. ISTo man, what- 
ever his sensibility may be, is ever affected by Hamlet or 



MILTON. 47 

Lear, as a little girl is affected by tlie story of poor Red 
Riding-hood, She knows that it is all false, that wolves 
cannot speak, that there are no wolves in England. Yet in 
spite of her knowledge she believes ; she weeps ; she trem- 
bles ; she dares not go into a dark room lest she should 
feel the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is the 
despotism of the imagination over uncultivated minds. 

15. In a rude state of society men are children with a 
greater variety of ideas. It is therefore in such a state of 
society that we may expect to find the poetical tempera- 
ment in its highest perfection. In an enlightened age there 
will be much intelligence, much science, much philosophy, 
abundance of just classification and subtle analysis, 
abundance of wit and eloquence, abundance of verses, and 
even of good ones ; but little poetry. Men will judge and 
compare; but they will not create. They will talk about 
the old poets, and comment on them, and to a certain 
degree enjoy them. But they will scarcely be able to con- 
ceive the effect which poetry produced on their ruder an- 
cestors, the agony, the ecstacy, the plenitude of belief. 
The Greek Rhapsodists^ , according to Plato^, could scarce 
recite Homer without falling into convulsions. The IMo- 
hawk^ hardly feels the scalping-knife wdiile he shouts his 
death-song. The power which the ancient bards* of Wales 
and Germany exercised over their auditors seems to 
modern readers almost miraculous. Such feelings are very 
rare in a civilized community, and most rare among those 
who participate most in its improvements. They linger 
longest among the peasantry. 

16. Poetry produces an illusion on the eye of the mind, 



48 THE CKANE CLASSICS. 

as a magic lantern produces an illusion on the eye of the 
body. And, as the magic lantern acts best in a dark room, 
poetry effects its purpose most completely in a dark age. 
As the light of knoAvledge breaks in upon its exhibitions, 
as the outlines of certainty become more and more definite, 
and the shades of probability more and more distinct, the 
hues and lineaments of the ]^hantoans which the poet calls 
up grow fainter and fainter. We cannot unite the incom- 
patible advantages of reality and deception, the clear dis- 
cernment of truth and the exquisite enjoyment of fiction. 

17. lie who, in an enlightened and literary society, 
aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child^. 
He must take to pieces the whole web of his mind. He 
must unlearn much of that knowledge which has perhaps 
constituted hitherto his chief title to superiority. His very 
talents will be a hindrance to him. His difficulties will be 
pro])ortioned to his proficiency in the pursuits which are 
fashionable among his contemporaries; and that pro- 
ficiency will in general be proportioned to the vigor and 
activity of his mind. And it is well if, after all his sacri- 
fices and exertions, his works do not resemble a lisping 
man or a modern ruin. We have seen in our own time 
great talents, intense labor, and long meditation, employed 
in this strugi>le against the spirit of the age, and em- 
ployed, we will not say absolutely in vain, but with 
dubious success and feel)le applause. 

18. If these reasonings be jnst, no poet has ever 
triumphed over greater difficulties than Milton. He re- 
ceived a learned education : he was a profound and elegant 
classical scholar; he had studied all the mysteries of 



MILTON. 49 

Rabbinical literature; he was intimately acquainted with 
every language of modern Europe from which either pleas- 
ure or information was then to be derived. He was perhaps 
the only great poet of later times who has been dis- 
tinguished by the excellence of his Latin verse. The genius 
of Petrarch^ was scarcely of the first order ; and his poems 
in the ancient language, though much praised by those who 
have never read them, are wretched compositions. Cowley, 
with all his admirable wit and ingenuity, had little im- 
agination ; nor indeed do we think his classical diction 
comparable to that of Milton. The authority of Johnson 
is against us on this point. But Johnson had studied the 
bad writers of the middle ages till he had become 
utterly insensible to the Augustan elegance, and was as ill 
qualified to judge between two Latin styles as a habitual 
drunkard to set up for a wine-taster-. 

19, Versification in a dead language is an exotic, a 
far-fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that wliich else- 
where may be found in healthful and spontaneous perfec- 
tion. The soils on which this rarity flourishes are in 
general as ill-suited to the production of vigorous native 
poetry as the flower-pots of a hot-house to the growth of 
oaks. That the author of the Paradise Lost should have 
written the Epistle to Manso^ was truly wonderful. Never 
before were such marked originality and such exquisite 
mimicry found together. Indeed, in all the Latin poems 
of Milton the artificial manner indispensable to such works 
is admirably preserved, while, at the same time, his genius 
gives to them a peculiar charm, an air of nobleness and 
freedom, which distinguishes them from all other writings 
—4 



50 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

of the same class. They remind us of the amusements 

of those angelic warriors who composed the cohort of 

Gabriel : — 

"About him exercised heroic games 
The unarmed youth of heaven. But o'er their heads 
Celestial armory, shield, helm, and spear, 
Hung high, with diamond flaming and with gold-." 

We cannot look upon the sportive exercises for which the 
genius of Milton ungirds itself, without catching a glimpse 
of the gorgeous and terrible panoply^ which it is accus- 
tomed to wear. The strength of his imagination triumphed 
over every obstacle. So intense and ardent was the fire of 
his mind, that it not only was not suffocated beneath the 
weight of fuel, but penetrated the whole superincumbent 
mass with its own heat and radiance. 

20. It is not our intention to attempt anything like a 
complete examination of the poetry of Milton. The public 
has long been agreed as to the merit of the most remarkable 
passages, the incomparable harmony of the numbers, and 
the excellence of that style which no rival has been able 
to equal and no parodist to degrade, which displays in 
their highest perfection the idiomatic powers of the 
English tong-ue, and to which every ancient and every 
modern language has contributed something of grace, of 
energy, or of music. In the vast field of criticism on which 
we are entering, innumerable reapers have already put 
their sickles. Yet the harvest is so abundant that the neg- 
ligent search of a straggling gleaner may be rewarded with 
a sheaf. 

21. The most striking characteristic of the poetry of 
Milton is the extreme remoteness of the associations by 



MILTOK. 51 

means of which it acts on the reader. Its effect is produced, 
not so much by what it expresses, as by what it suggests ; 
not so much by the ideas which it directly conveys, as by 
other ideas which are connected with them. He electrifies 
the mind through conductors. The most unimaginative 
man must understand the Iliad^. Homer gives him no 
choice, and requires from him no exertion, but takes the 
whole upon himself, and sets the images in so clear a light 
that it is impossible to be blind to them. The works of 
Milton cannot be comprehended or enjoyed unless the 
mind of the reader cooperate with that of the writer. He 
does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive 
listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the out- 
line. He strikes the key-note, and expects his hearer to 
make out the melody. 

22. We often hear of the magical influence of poetry. 
The expression in general means nothing; but, applied to 
the writings of Milton, it is most appropriate. His poetry 
acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious 
meaning than in its occult power. There would seem, at 
first sight, to be no more in his words than in other words. 
But they are words of enchantment. ]^o sooner are they 
pronounced, than the past is present and the distant near. 
JSTew forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all 
the burial-places of the memory give up their dead. 
Change the structure of the sentence, substitute one syno- 
nym for another, and the whole effect is destroyed. The 
spell loses its power ; and he who should then hope to con- 
jure with it would find himself as much mistaken as 
Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, " Open 
Wheat," " Open Barley," to the door which obeyed no 



52 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

sound but "Open Sesame^" The miserable failure of 
Dryden^ in bis attempt to translate into bis own diction 
some parts of tbe Paradise Lost, is a remarkable instance 
of this. 

23. In support of these observations we may remark, 
that scarcely any passages in the poems of Milton are 
more generally known, or more frequently repeated, than 
those Avhich are little more than muster-rolls of names*. 
They are not always more appropriate or more melodious 
than other names. But they are charmed names. Every 
one of them is the first link in a long chain of associated 
ideas. Like the dwelling-place of our infancy revisited in 
manhood, like the song of our country heard in a strange 
land, they produce upon us an effect wholly independent 
of their intrinsic value. One transports us back to a 
remote period of history. Another places us among the 
novel scenes and manners of a distant region. A third 
evokes all the dear classical recollections of childhood, the 
school-room, the dog-eared Virgil, the holiday, and tlie 
prize. A fourth brings before us the splendid phantoms 
of chivalrous romance, the trophied lists^, the embroidered 
housings, the quaint devices, the haunted forests, the en- 
chanted gardens, the achievements of enamoured knights, 
and the smiles of rescued princesses. 

24. In none of the works of Milton is his peculiar man- 
ner more happily displayed than in the Allegro and the 
Penseroso^ It is impossible to conceive that the mechanism 
of language can be brought to a more exquisite degree of 
perfection. These poems differ from others as attar of 
roses differs from ordinary rose-water, the close-packed 
essence from the thin, diluted mixture. They are indeed 



MILTON. 53 

not so much poems as collections of hints, from each of 
which the reader is to make out a poem for himself. Every 
epithet is a text for a stanza. 

25. The Comus^ and the Samson Agonistes are works 
which, though of very different merit, offer some marked 
points of resemblance. Both are lyric poems in the form 
of plays. There are perhaps no two kinds of composition 
so essentially dissimilar as the drama and the ode. The 
business of the dramatist is to keep himself out of sight, 
and to let nothing appear but his characters. As soon as 
he attracts notice to his personal feelings, the illusion is 
broken. The effect is as unpleasant as that which is pro- 
duced on the stage by the voice of a prompter or the en- 
trance of a scene-shifter. Hence it was that the tragedies 
of Byron^ were his least successful performances. They 
resemble those pasteboard pictures invented by the friend 
of children, Mr. !Newbery, in which a single movable head 
goes round twenty different bodies, so that the same face 
looks out upon us, successively, from the uniform of a 
hussar, the furs of a judge, and the rags of a beggar. In 
all the characters, patriots and tyrants, haters and lovers, 
the frown and sneer of Harold^ were discernible in an in- 
stant. But this species of egotism, though fatal to the 
drama, is the inspiration of the ode. It is the part of the 
lyric poet to abandon himself, without reserve, to his own 
emotions. 

26. Between these hostile elements many great men 
have endeavored to effect an amalgamation, but never 
with complete success. The Greek Drama, on the model 
of which the Samson was written, sprang from the Ode. 
The dialogue was ingrafted on the chorus^, and naturally 



54 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

partook of its character. The genius of the greatest of the 
Athenian dramatists cooperated with the circumstances 
under which tragedy made its first apearance. yEschylus^ 
was, head and heart, a lyric poet. In his time the Greeks 
had far more intercourse with the East than in the days 
of liomer ; and they had not yet acquired that immense 
superiority in war, in science, and in the arts, which, in 
the following generation, led tlicm to treat the Asiatics 
with contempt. From the narrative of Herodotus'^ it 
should seem that they still looked up, with the veneration 
of disciples, to Egypt and Assyria. At this period, accord- 
ingly, it was natural that the literature of Greece should 
be tinctured with the Oriental style. And that style, 
we think, is discernible in the works of Pindar^ and 
^schylus. The latter often reminds us of the Hebrew 
writers. The book of Job, indeed, in conduct and diction, 
bears a considerable resemblance to some of his dramas. 
Considered as plays, his works are absurd; considered as 
choruses, they are above all praise. If, for instance, we 
examine the address of Clytemnestra^ to Agamemnon on 
his return, or the description of the seven Argive chiefs, 
by the principles of dramatic writing, we shall instantly 
condemn them as monstrous. But if we forget the charac- 
ters, and think only of the poetry, w^e shall admit that it 
has never been surpassed in energy and magnificence. 
Sophocles" made the Greek drama as dramatic as was con- 
sistent with its original form. His portraits of men have 
a sort of similarity ; but it is the similarity not of a paint- 
ing, but of a bas-relief'. It suggests a resemblance; but it 
does not produce an illusion. Euripides^ attempted to 
carry the reform further. But it was a task far beyond 



MILTON. 55 

his powers, perhaps beyond any powers. Instead of cor- 
recting what was bad, he destroyed what was excellent. 
He substituted crutches for stilts, bad sermons for good 
odes. 

27. Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides highly; 
nuicli more highly than, in our opinion, Euripides de- 
seiwed. Indeed, the caresses which this partiality leads 
our countr^anan to bestow on "sad Electra's poet," some- 
times remind us of the beautiful Queen of Fairyland kiss- 
ing the long ears of Bottom^. At all events, there can be 
no doubt that this veneration for the Athenian, whether 
just or not, was injurious to the Samson Agonistes. Had 
Milton taken ^sehylus for his model, he would have given 
hin'iself up to the lyric inspiration, and poured out pro- 
fusely all the treasures of his mind, without bestowing a 
thought on those dramatic proprieties which the nature of 
the work rendered it impossible to preserve. In the at- 
tempt to reconcile things in their own nature inconsistent, 
he has failed, as every one else must have failed. We can- 
not identify ourselves with the characters, as in a good play. 
We cannot identify ourselves with the poet, as in a good 
ode. The conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an alkali 
mixed, neutralize each other. We are by no means insensi- 
ble to the merits of this celebrated piece, to the severe 
dignity of the style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of 
the opening speech, or the wild and barbaric melody which 
gives so striking an effect to the choral passages". But we 
think it, we confess, the least successful effort of the genius 
of Milton. 

28. The Comus is framed on the model of the Italian 
Masque^, as the Samson is framed on the model of the 



56 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

Greek Tragedy. It is certainly the noblest performance of 
the kind which exists in any language. It is as far 
su])crior to the Faithful Shepherdess^, as the Faithful 
Shepherdess is to the Aminta^ or the Aminta to the Pas- 
tor Fido^. It was well for Milton that he had here no 
Euripides to mislead him. He understood and loved the 
literature of modern Italy. But he did not feel for it the 
same veneration Avhich he entertained for the remains of 
Athenian and Eoman poetry, consecrated by so many 
lofty and endearing recollections. The faults, moreover, 
of his Italian predecessors were of a kind to which his mind 
had a deadly antipathy. He could stoop to a plain style, 
sometimes even to a bald style ; but false brilliancy was 
his utter aversion. His Muse had no objection to a russet 
attire; but she turned with disgust from the iinery of 
Guarini, as tawdry and as paltry as the rags of a chimney- 
sweeper on May-day. Whatever ornaments she wears are 
of massive gold, not only dazzliug to the sight, but capable 
of standing the severest test of the crucible. 

29. Milton attended in the Comus to the distinction 
which he afterwards neglected in the Samson. He made 
his Masque what it ought to be, essentially lyrical, and 
dramatic only in semblance. He has not attempted a fruit- 
less struggle against a defect inherent in the nature of 
that species of composition; and he has therefore suc- 
ceeded, wherever success was not impossible. The speeches 
must be read as majestic soliloquies ; and he who so reads 
them will be enraptured with their eloquence, their sub- 
limity, and their music. The interruptions of the dia- 
logue, however, impose a constraint upon the writer, and 
break the illusion of the reader. The finest passages are 



MILTON. 57 

those whicli are lyric in form as well as in spirit. " I 

shonkl ninch commend," says the excellent Sir Henry 

Wotton^ in a letter to Milton, " the tragical part, if the 

lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy 

in your songs and odes, whereunto, I must plainly confess 

to you, I have seen yet nothing parallel in our language." 

The criticism was just. It is w^hen Milton escapes from 

the shackles of the dialogue, when he is discharged from 

the labor of uniting two incongruous styles, when he is at 

liberty to indulge his choral raptures without reserve, 

that he rises even al)ove himself. Then, like his owu 

ffood Genius bursting from the earthlv form and weeds of 

Thyrsis^, he stands forth in celestial freedom and beauty; 

he seems to cry exultantly, 

" Now my task is smoothly done, 
I can fly, or I can run'," 

to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe in the 
Elysian^ dew of the rainbow, and to inhale the balmy 
smells of nard and cassia^, which the musky wings of the 
zephyr scatter through the cedared alleys of the ITcs- 
perides^. 

30. There are several of the minor poems of Milton on 
which we would willingly make a few remarks. Still 
more willingly would we enter into a detailed examina- 
tion of that admirable poem, the Paradise Regained, 
which, strangely enough, is scarcely ever mentioned except 
as an instance of the blindness of the parental affection 
which men of letters bear towards the offspring of their 
intellects. That Milton was mistaken in preferring this 
work, excellent as it is, to the Paradise Lost, we readily 



58 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

admit. But we are sure that the superiority of the Para- 
dise Lost to the Paradise Regained is not more decided 
than the superiority of the Paradise Regained to every 
poem which has since made its appearance. Our limits, 
however, prevent us from discussing the point at length. 
We hasten on to that extraordinary production which the 
general suffrage of critics has placed in the highest class 
of human compositions. 

31. The only poem of modern times which can be com- 
pared with the Paradise Lost is the Divine Comedy^ The 
subject of Milton, in some points, resembled that of 
Dante^.; but he has treated it in a widely different man- 
ner. We cannot, we think, better illustrate our opinion 
respecting our own great poet, than by contrasting him 
with the father of Tuscan literature^. 

32. The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante as 
the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture- 
writing of Mexico. The images which Dante employs 
speak for themselves; they stand simply for what they 
are. Those of Milton have a signification which is often 
discernible only to the initiated. Their value depends less 
on what they directly represent than on what they remotely 
suggest. However strange, however grotesque, may be the 
appearance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never 
shrinks from describing it. He gives us the shape, the 
color, the sound, the smell, the taste ; he counts the num-^ 
bers; he measures the size. His similes are the illustra- 
tions of a traveller. Unlike those of other poets, and 
especially of Milton, they are introduced in a plain, busi- 
ness-like manner; not for the sake of any beauty in the 
objects from which they are drawn; not for the sake of 



MILTON. 59 

anv ornament which they may impart to the poem; but 
simply in order to make the meaning of the writer as clear 
to the reader as it is to himself. The ruins of the precipice 
which led from the sixth to the seventh circle of hell were 
like those of the rock which fell into the Adige on the 
south of Trent. The cataract of Phlegethon was like that 
of Aqua Cheta at the monastery of St. Benedict. The 
place where the heretics were confined in burning tombs 
resembled the vast cemetery of Aries. 

33. ISTow let us compare with the exact details of Dante 
the dim intimations of Milton. We will cite a few exam- 
ples. The English poet has never thought of taking the 
measure of Satan. lie gives us merely a vague idea of 
vast bulk. In one passage the fiend lies stretched out, 
huge in length, floating many a rood, equal in size to the 
earth-born enemies of Jove, or to the sea-monster which 
the mariner mistakes for an island. When he addresses 
himself to battle against the guardian angels, he stands 
like Teneriffe or Atlas: his stature reaches the sky. Con- 
trast with these descriptions the lines in which Dante has 
described the gigantic spectre of Nimrod. " His face 
seemed to me as long and as broad as the ball of St. Peter's 
at Rome ; and his other limbs were in proportion ; so that 
the bank, which concealed him from the waist downwards, 
nevertheless showed so much of him, that three tall Ger- 
mans would in vain have attempted to reach to his hair." 
We are sensible that we do no justice to the admirable 
style of the Florentine poet. But Mr. Gary's translation 
is not at hand ; and our version, however rude, is sufficient 
to illustrate our meaning. 

34. Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh 



60 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

book of the Paradise Lost with the last word of Malebolge 
in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome details, and takes 
refuge in indistinct bnt solemn and tremendous imagery: 
Despair hurrying from couch to couch to mock the 
wretches with his attendance; Death shaking his dart over 
them, but, in spite of supplications, delaying to strike. 
What says Dante ? "There was such a moan there as there 
would be if all the sick who, between July and September, 
are in the hospitals of Valdichiana, and of the Tuscan i 
swamps, and of Sardinia, were in one pit together ; and 
such a stench was issuing forth as is wont to issue from 
decayed limbs." 

35. We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office 
of settling precedency between two such writers. Each in 
his own department is incomparable ; and each, we may 
remark, has wisely, or fortunately, taken a subject adapted 
to exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest advantage. 
The Divine Comedy is a personal narrative. Dante is the 
eye-witness and ear-witness of that which he relates. He 
is the very man who has heard the tormented spirits 
crying out for the second death ; who has read the dusky 
characters on the portal within which there is no hope; 
who has hidden his face from the terrors of the Gorgon^ ; 
who has fled from the hooks and the seething pitch of 
Earbariccia and Draghigiiazzo. His own hands have 
grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. His own feet have 
climbed the mountain of expiation. His own brow has 
been marked by the purifying angel. The reader would 
throw aside such a tale in incredulous disgust, unless it 
were told with the strongest air of veracity, with a sobriety 
even in its horrors, with the greatest precision and multi- 



MILTON. 61 

plicity in its details. The narrative of Milton- in this 
respect differs from that of Dante, as the adventures of 
Amadis^ differ from those of Gulliver'^. The author of 
Amadis would have made his book ridiculous if he had 
introduced those minute particulars which give such a 
charm to the work of Swift: the nautical observations, 
the affected delicacy about names, the official documents 
transcribed at full length, and all the unmeaning gossip 
and scandal of the court, springing out of nothing, and 
tending to nothing. We are not shocked at being told that 
a man who lived, nobody knows when, saw many very 
strange sights, and we can easily abandon ourselves to the 
illusion of the romance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, sur- 
geon, resident at Rotherhithe, tells us of pygmies and 
giants, flying islands, and philosophizing horses, nothing 
but such circumstantial touches could produce for a single 
moment a deception on the imagination. 

36. Of all the poets who have introduced into their 
works the agency of supernatural beings, Milton has suc- 
ceeded best. Here Dante decidedly yields to him ; and as 
this is a point on which many rash and ill-considered judg- 
ments have been pronounced, we feel inclined to dwell on 
it a little longer. The most fatal error which a poet can 
possibly commit in the management of his machinery, is 
that of attempting to philosophize too much. Milton has 
been often censured for ascribing to spirits many functions 
of which spirits must be incapable. But these objections, 
though sanctioned by eminent names, originate, we venture 
to say, in profound ignorance of the art of poetry. 

37. What is spirit ? What are our own minds, the por- 
tion of spirit with which we are best acquainted ? We 



62 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

observe certain phenomena. We cannot explain them into 
material causes. We therefore infer that there exists 
something which is not material. But of this something we 
have no idea. We can define it only by negatives. We can 
reason about it only by symbols. We use the word ; but 
we have no image of the thing ; and the business of poetry 
is with images, and not with words. The poet uses words 
indeed; but they are merely the instruments of his art, 
not its objects. They are the materials which he is to dis- 
pose in such manner as to present a picture to the mental 
eye. And if they are not so disposed, they are no more 
entitled to be called poetry than a bale of canvas and a 
box of colors to be called a painting. 

38. Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the 
great mass of men must have images. The strong tendency 
of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be 
explained on no other principle. The first inhabitants of 
Greece, there is reason to believe, worshipped one invisible 
Deity^'. But the necessity of having something more 
definite to adore produced, in a few centuries, the in- 
numerable crowd of gods and goddesses. In like manner 
the ancient Persians thought it impious to exhibit the 
Creator under a human form. Yet even these transferred 
to the Sun the worship which, in speculation, they con- 
sidered due only to the Supreme Mind. The history of the 
Jews is the record of a continued struggle between pure 
Theism, supported by the most terrible sanctions, and tlio 
strangely fascinating desire of having some visible and 
tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none of the second- 
ary causes which Gibbon^ has assigned for the rapidity 
with which Christianity spread over the world, while 



MILTON. 63 

Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, operated more 
powerfully than this feeling. God, the uncreated, the in- 
comprehensible, the invisible, attracted few worshippers. 
A philosopher might admire so noble a conception; but 
the crowd turned away in disgust from words which pre- 
sented no image to their minds. It was before Deity, em- 
bodied in a human form, walking among men, partaking 
of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over 
their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the 
cross, that the prejudices of the Synagogue, and the doubts 
of the Academy^, and the pride of the Portico^, and the 
fasces of the Lictor^, and the swords of thirty legions^, 
were humbled in the dust. Soon after Christianity had 
achieved its triumph, the principle which had assisted it 
began to corrupt it. It became a new Paganism. Patron 
saints assumed the offices of household gods. St. George''^ 
took the place of Mars. St. Elmo consoled the mariner for 
the loss of Castor and Pollux^. The Virgin Mother and 
Cecilia^ succeeded to Venus and the Muses. The fascina- 
tion of sex and loveliness was again joined to that of celes- 
tial dignity ; and the homage of chivalry was blended with 
that of religion. Reformers have often made a stand 
against these feelings ; but never ^\^th more than apparent 
and partial success. The men who demolished the images 
in cathedrals have not always been able to demolish those 
which were enshrined in their minds. It would not be 
difficult to show that in politics the same rule holds good. 
Doctrines, we are afraid, must generally be embodied be- 
fore they can excite a strong public feeling. The multitude 
is more easily interested for the most uimaeaning badge. 



64 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

or the most insignificant name, than for the most im- 
portant principle. 

39. From these considerations, we infer that no poet 
who should affect that metaphysical accuracy for the want 
of which Milton has heen blamed, would escape a disgrace- 
ful failure. Still, however, there was another extreme 
which, though far less dangerous, was also to be avoided. 
The imaginations of men are in a great measure under the 
control of their opinions. The most exquisite art of 
poetical coloring can produce no illusion when it is em- 
ployed to represent that which is at once perceived to be 
incongruous and absurd. Milton wrote in an age of 
philosophers and theologians. It was necessary, therefore, 
for him to abstain from giving such a shock to their un- 
derstandings as might break the charm which it was his 
object to throw over their imaginations. This is the real 
explanation of the indistinctness and inconsistency with 
which he has often been reproached. Dr. Johnson ac- 
knowledges that it was absolutely necessary that the spirits 
should be clothed with material forms. " But," says he, 
"the poet should have secured the consistency of his sys- 
tem by keeping immatcTiality out of sight, and seducing 
the reader to drop it from his thoughts." This is easily 
said; but what if Milton could not seduce his readers to 
drop immateriality from their thoughts ? Wliat if the 
contrary opinion had taken so full a possession of the 
minds of men as to leave no room even for the half-belief 
which poetry requires ? Such we suspect to have been the 
case. It was impossible for the poet to adopt altogether 
the material or the immaterial system. He therefore took 
his stand on the debatable ground. He left the whole in 



MILTON. 65 

ambiguity. He lias doubtless, by so doing, laid himself 
open to tlie charge of inconsistency. But, though philo- 
sophically in the wrong, we cannot but believe that he was 
poetically in the right. This task, which almost any other 
writer would have found impracticable, was easy to him. 
The peculiar art which he possessed of communicating his 
meaning cireuitously through a long succession of asso- 
ciated ideas, and of intimating more than he expressed, 
enabled him to disguise those incongruities which he could 
not avoid. 

40. Poetry which relates to the beings of another world 
ought to be at once mysterious and picturesque. That of 
Milton is so. That of Dante is picturesque indeed beyond 
any that ever was written. Its effect approaches to that 
produced by the pencil or the chisel. But it is picturesque 
to the exclusion of all mystery. This is a fault on the 
right side, a fault inseparable from the plan of Dante's 
poem, which, as we have already observed, rendered the 
utmost accuracy of description necessary. Still it is a 
fault. The supernatural agents excite an interest ; but it 
is not the interest which is proper to supernatural agents. 
We feel that we could talk to the ghosts and demons, with- 
out any emotion of unearthly awe. We could, like Don 
Juan^, ask them to supper, and eat heartily in their com- 
pany. Dante's angels are good men with wings. His devils 
are spiteful, ugly executioners. His dead men are merely 
living men in strange situations. The scene which passes 
between the poet and Farinata is justly celebrated. Still, 
Farinata^ in the burning tomb is exactly what Farinata 
would have been at an auto da fe^. Nothing can be more 
—5 



66 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

touching than the first interview ot Dante and Beatrice*. 
Yet what is it, but a lovely woman chiding, with sweet 
austere composure, the lover for whose affection she is 
grateful, hut whose vices she reprobates? The feelings 
which give the passage its charm would suit the streets 
of Florence as well as the summit of the Mount of Pur- 
gatory. 

41. The spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all 
other writers. His fiends, in particular, are wonderful 
creations. They are not metaphysical abstractions. They 
are not wicked men. They are not ugly beasts. They have 
no horns, no tails, none of the fee-faw-fum of Tasso^ and 
Klopstock^. They have just enough, in common with 
human nature to be intelligible to human beings. Their 
characters are, like their forms, marked by a certain dim 
resemblance to those of men, but exaggerated to gigantic 
dimensions, and veiled in mysterious gloom. 

42. Perhaps the gods and demons of JEschylus may best 
bear a comparison with the angels and devils of Milton. 
The style of the Athenian had, as we have remarked, 
something of the Oriental character; and the same pecu- 
liarity may be traced in his mythology. It has nothing of 
the amenity and elegance which we generally find in the 
superstitions of Greece. All is rugged, barbaric, and colos- 
sal. The legends of ^schylus seem to harmonize less with 
the fragrant groves^ and graceful porticoes in which his 
countrymen paid their vows to the God of Light and God- 
dess of Desire^, than with those huge and grotesque laby- 
rinths of eternal granite in which Egypt enshrined her 
mystic Osiris'^, or in which Hindostan still bows down to ■ 
her seven-headed idols*. His favorite gods are those of the 



MILTON. 67 

elder generations, tlie sons of heaven and earth, compared 
with whom Jupiter himself was a stripling and an upstart, 
the gigantic Titans, and the inexorable Furies^. Foremost 
among his creations of this class stands Prometheus^, half 
fiend, half redeemer, the friend of man, the sullen and im- 
placable enemy of heaven. Prometheus bears undoubtedly 
a considerable resemblance to the Satan of Milton. In 
both we find the same impatience of control, the same 
ferocity, the same unconquerable pride. In both charac- 
ters also are mingled, though in very different proportions, 
some kind and generous feelings. Prometheus, however, 
is hardly superhuman enough. He talks too much of his 
chains and his uneasy posture ; he is rather too much de- 
pressed and agitated. His resolution seems to depend on 
the knowledge which he possesses that he holds the fate 
of his torturer in his hands, and that the hour of his release 
Avill surely come. But Satan is a creature of another 
sphere. The might of his intellectual nature is victorious 
over the extremity of pain. Amidst agonies which cannot 
be conceived without horror, he deliberates, resolves, and 
even exults. Against the sword of MichaeF, against the 
thunder of Jehovah, against the flaming lake, and the 
marl burning with solid fire, against the prospect of an 
eternity of unintermitted misery^ his spirit bears up un- 
broken, resting on its own innate energies, requiring no 
support from anything external, nor even from hope itself. 
43. To return for a moment to the parallel which we 
have been attempting to draw between Milton and Dante, 
we would add that the poetry of these great men has in a 
considerable degree taken its character from their moral 
qualities. They are not egotists. They rarely obtrude their 



68 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

idiosyncracies on their readers^. They liave notliing in 
common with those modern beggars for fame who extort 
a pittance from the compassion of the inexperienced by 
exposing the nakedness and sores of their minds. Yet it 
would be difficult to name two writers whose works have 
been more completely, though undesignedly, colored by 
their personal feelings. 

44. The character of Milton was peculiarly distin- 
guished by loftiness of spirit; that of Dante by intensity 
of feeling. In evei'y line of the Divine Comedy we discern 
the asperity which is produced by pride struggling with 
misery. There is perhaps no work in the world so deeply 
and uniformly sorrowful. The melancholy of Dante was 
no fantastic caprice. It was not, as far as at this distance 
of time can be judged, the effect of external circumstances. 
It was from within. Neither love nor glory, neither the 
conflicts of earth nor the hope of heaven, could dispel it. 
It turned every consolation and every pleasure into its 
own nature. It resembled that noxious Sardinian soil of 
which the intense bitterness is said to have been percepti- 
ble even in its honey. His mind was, in the noble lan- 
guage of the Hebrew poet, "a land of darkness, as dark- 
ness itself, and where the light was as darkness." The 
gloom of his character discolors all the passions of men 
and all the face of nature, and tinges with its own livid 
hue the flowers of Paradise and the glories of the eternal 
throne. All the portraits of him are singularly character- 
istic. 'No person can look on the features, noble even to 
ruggedness, the dark furrows of the cheek, the haggard 
and woeful stare of the eye, the sullen and contemptuous 



MILTON. 69 

curve of the lip, and doubt that they belong to a man too 
proud and too sensitive to be happy. 

45. Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a lover; 
and, like Dante, he had been unfortunate in ambition and 
in love. He had survived his health and his sight, the 
comforts of his home, and prosperity of his party. Of 
the great men by whom he had been distinguished, at his 
entrance into life, some had been taken away from the 
evil to come ; some had carried into foreign climates their 
unconquerable hatred of oppression ; some were pining 
in dungeons ; and some had poured forth their blood on 
scaffolds. Venal and licentious scribblers, with just 
sufficient talent to clothe the thoughts of a pandar in the 
style of a bellman, were now the favorite writers of the 
Sovereign and of the ])ublic. It was a loathsome herd, 
Avhich con Id be compared to nothing so fitly as to the rab- 
ble of Comus, grotesque monsters, half bestial, half 
human, dropping with wine, bloated with gluttony, and 
reeling in obscene dances. Amidst these that fair ]\Iuse 
was placed, like the chaste lady of the Masque, lofty, spot- 
less, and serene, to be chattered at, and pointed at, and 
grinned at, by the whole rout of Satyrs and Goblins. If 
ever despondency and asperity could be excused in any 
man, they might have been excused in Milton. But the 
strength of his mind overcame every calamity. I^either 
blindness, nor gout, nor age, nor penury, nor domestic 
afflictions, nor political disappointments, nor abuse, nor 
proscription, nor neglect, had power to disturb his sedate 
and majestic patience. His spirits do not seem to have 
been high, but they were singularly equable. His temper 
was serious, perhaps stern; but it was a temper which 



70 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

no sufferings could render sullen or fretful. Sucli as itj 
was when, on the eve of great events, he returned from his j 
travels in the prime of health and manly beauty, loaded t 
with literary distinctions, and glowing wuth patriotic; 
hopes, such it continued to be when, after liaving ex-; 
perienced every calamity which is incident to our nature, ': 
old, poor, sightless, and disgraced, he retired to his hovel i 
to die. 

46. Hence it was that, though he wrote the Paradise 
Lost at a time of life when images of beauty and tender- , 
ness are in general beginning to fade, even from those j 
minds in which they have not been effaced by anxiety and ! 
disappointment, he adorned it with all that is most lovely j 
and delightful in the physical and in the moral world. 
Neither Theocritus^ nor Ariosto^ had a finer or a more; 
healthful sense of the pleasantness of external objects, or 
loved better to luxuriate amidst sunbeams and flowers,^ 
the songs of nightingales, the juice of summer fruits, and 
the coolness of shady fountains. His conception of love' 
unites all the voluptuousness of the Oriental harem, and 
all the gallantry of the chivalric tournament, with all the 
pure and quiet affection of an English fireside. His poetry 
reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and 
dells, beautiful as fairyland, are embosomed in its most 
rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles 
bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche. 

47. Traces, indeed, of the peculiar character of ]\Iilton 
may be found in all his works ; but it is most strongly di-;- 
played in the Sonnets. Those remarkable poems have been 
undervalued by critics who have not understood their 
nature. They have no epigrammatic point. There is none of 



MILTON. 71 

the ingenuity of Filicaja^ in the thought, none of the hard 
and brilliant enamel of Petrarch^ in the style. They are 
simple but majestic records of the feelings of the poet; 
as little tricked out for the public eye as his diary would 
have been. A victory, an expected attack upon the city, 
a momentary fit of depression or exultation, a jest thrown 
out against one of his books, a dream which for a short 
time restored to him that beautiful face over which the 
grave had closed forever, led him to musings which, with- 
out effort, shaped themselves into verse. The unity of 
sentiment and severity of style which characterize these 
little pieces remind us of the Greek Anthology, or per- 
haps still more of the Collects of the English Liturgy^. 
The noble poem on the Massacre of Piedmont is strictly a 
collect in verse. 

48. The Sonnets are more or less striking, according as 
the occasions which gave birth to them are more or less in- 
teresting. But they are, almost without exception, dig- 
nified by a sobriety and greatness of mind to which we 
know not where to look for a parallel. It would, indeed, be 
scarcely safe to draw any decided inferences as to the 
character of a writer from passages directly egotistical. 
But the qualities which we have ascribed to Milton, 
though perhaps most strongly marked in those parts of his 
works which treat of his personal feelings, are distin- 
guishable in every page, and impart to all his writings, 
prose and poetry, English, Latin, and Italian, a strong 
family likeness. 

49. His public conduct was such as was to be expected 
from a man of a spirit so high and of an intellect so power- 
ful. He lived at one of the most memorable eras in the 



72 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

history of mankind; at the very crisis of the great con- 
flict betwen Oromasdes and Arimanes'^, liberty and des- 
potism, reason and prejudice. That great battle was fought 
for no single generation, for no single land. The destinies 
of the human race were staked on the same cast with the 
freedom of the English people. Then were first pro- 
claimed those mighty principles which have since worked 
their way into the depths of the American forests, which 
have roused Greece from the slavery and degradation of 
two thousand years^, and which, from one end of Europe 
to the other, have kindled an unquenchable fire in the 
hearts of the oppressed, and loosed the knees of the op- 
pressors with an unwonted fear. 

50. Of those principles, then struggling for their in- 
fant existence, Milton was the most devoted and eloquent 
literary champion. We need not say how much we admire 
his public conduct. But we cannot disguise from ourselves 
that a large portion of his countrymen still think it un- 
justifiable. The civil war, indeed, has been more discussed, 
and is less understood, than any event in English history. 
The friends of liberty labored under the disadvantage of 
which the lion in the fable complained so bitterly. Though 
they were the conquerors, their enemies were the painters. 
As a body, the Roundheads^ had done their utmost to decry 
and ruin literature; and literature was even with them, 
as, in the long run, it always is, with its enemies. The best 
book on their side of the question is the charming narrative 
of Mrs. Hutchinson. May's History of the Parliament is 
good ; but it breaks oif at the most interesting crisis of the 
struggle. The performance of Ludlow is foolish and vio- 



1 



MILTON. * 73 

lent ; and most of the later writers who have espoused the 
same cause, Oldmixon, for instance, and Catherine Ma- 
caulay, have, to say the least, been more distinguished by 
zeal than either by candor or by skill. On the other side 
are the most authoritative and the most popular historical 
M'orks in our language, that of Clarendon, and that of 
Hume. The former is not only ably written and full of 
valuable information, but has also an air of dignity and 
sincerity which makes even the prejudices and errors with 
which it abounds respectable. Hume, from whose fasci- 
nating narrative the great mass of the reading public are 
still contented to take their opinions, hated religion so much 
that he hated liberty for having been allied with religion, 
and has pleaded the cause of tyranny with the dexterity 
of an advocate, while affecting the impartiality of a 
judge^. 

51. The public conduct of Milton must be approved or 
condemned, according as the resistance of the people to 
Charles the First shall appear to be justifiable or criminal. 
We shall therefore make no apology for dedicating a few 
pages to the discussion of that interesting and most 
important question. We shall not argue it on general 
grounds. We shall not recur to those primary principles 
from which the claim of any government to the obedience 
of its subjects is to be deduced. We are entitled to that 
vantage-ground; but we will relinquish it. We are, on 
this point, so confident of superiority, that we are not 
unwilling to imitate the ostentatious generosity of those 
ancient knights, who vowed to joust without helmet or 
shield against all enemies, and to give their antagonists 
the advantage of sun and wind. W^e will take the naked 



74 ' THE CKANE CLASSICS. 

constitutional question. We confidently affirm, that every 
reason which can be urged in favor of the Revolution of 
1688 may be urged with at least equal force in favor of 
what is called the Great Rebellion. 

52. In one respect only, we think, can the warmest ad- 
mirers of Charles venture to say that he was a better 
sovereign than his son. He was not, in name and profes- 
sion, a Papist ; we say in name and profession, because 
both Charles himself and his creature Laud^, while they 
abjured the innocent badges of Popery, retained all its 
worst vices, a complete subjection of reason to authority, 
a weak preference of form to substance, a childish passion 
for mummeries, an idolatrous veneration for the priestly 
character, and, above all, a merciless intolerance. This, 
however, we waive. We will concede that Charles was a 
good Protestant; but we say that his Protestantism does 
not make the slightest distinction between his case and that 
of James. 

53. The principles of the Revolution have often been 
grossly misrejDresented, and never more than in the course 
of the present year. There is a certain class of men who, 
while they profess to hold in reverence the great names 
and great actions of former times, never look at them for 
any other purpose than in order to find in them some 
excuse for existing abuses. In every venerable precedent 
they pass by Avhat is essential, and take only what is acci- 
dental : they keep out of sight what is beneficial, and hold 
up to public imitation all that is defective. If, in any 
part of any great example, there be anything unsound, 
these flesh-flies detect it with an unerring instinct, and 
dart upon it with a ravenous delight. If some good end has 



MILTON. 75 

been attained in spite of them, they feel, with their pro- 
totype, that 

" Their labor must be to pervert that end, 
And out of good still to find means of evil.' " 

54. To the blessings which England has derived from 
the Revolution these people are utterly insensible. The 
expulsion of a tyrant, the solemn recognition of popular 
rights, liberty, security, toleration, all go for nothing with 
them. One sect there was, which, from unfortunate tempo- 
rary causes, it was thought necessary to keep under close 
restraint. One part of the empire there was so unhappily 
circumstanced, that at that time its misery was necessary 
to our happiness, and its slavery to our freedom. These 
are the parts of the Revolution which the politicians of 
whom we speak love to contemplate, and which seem to 
them not indeed to vindicate, but in some degree to palliate, 
the good which it has produced. Talk 'to them of Naples, 
of Spain, or of South America. They stand forth zealots 
for the doctrine of Divine Right, which has now come back 
to us, like a thief from transportation, under the alias of 
Legitimacy. But mention the miseries of Ireland. Then 
William^ is a hero. Then Somers^ and Shrewsbury are 
great men. Then the Revolution is a glorious era. The 
very same persons who, in this country, never omit an 
opportunity of reviving every wretched Jacobite slander 
respecting the AVhigs of that period, have no sooner crossed 
St. George's Channel, than they begin to fill their bumpers 
to the glorious and immortal memory. They may truly 
boast that they look not at men, but at measures. So that 
evil be done, they care not who does it; the arbitrary 



76 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

Charles or Ihe liberal William, Ferdinand the Catholic^ 
or Frederic the Protestant. On such occasions their dead- 
liest opponents may reckon upon their candid construction. 
The bold assertions of these people have of late impressed 
a large portion of the public with an opinion that James 
the Second v/as expelled simply because he was a Catholic, 
and that the Eevolution was essentially a Protestant Revo- 
lution. 

55. But this certainly was not the case; nor can any 
person who has acquired more knowledge of the history 
of those times than is to be found in Goldsmith's Abridg- 
mcnt\, l)elieve that, if James had held his own religious 
opinions without wishing to make proselytes, or if, wish- 
ing even to make proselytes, he had contented himself Avith 
exerting only his constitutional influence for that purpose, 
the Prince of Orange would ever have been invited over. 
Our ancestors, we suppose, knew their own meaning ; and, 
if we may believe them, their hostility was primarily not 
to popery, but to tyranny. They did not drive out a tyrant 
because he was a Catholic; but they excluded Catholics 
from the crown, because they thought them likely to be 
tyrants. The ground on which they, in their famous reso- 
lution, declared the throne vacant, was this, " that James 
had broken the fundamental laws of the kingdom." Every 
man, tlierefore, who approves of the Revolution of 1688 
must hold that the breach of fundamental laws on the part 
of the soveieign justifies resistance. The question, then, 
is this: Had Charles the First broken the fundamental 
laws of England ?^ 

56. ISTo person can answer in the negative unless he 
refuses credit, not merely to all the accusations brought 



MILTON. 77 

against Cliaiies bv his opponents, but to tbe narratives of 
the warmest Royalists, and to the confessions of the King 
himself. If there be any truth in any historian of any 
party who has related the events of that reign, the conduct 
of Charles, from his accession to the meeting of the Long 
Parliament, had been a continued course of oppression and 
treachery. Let those who applaud the Revolution and 
condemn the Rebellion mention one act of James the Sec- 
ond to which a parallel is not to be found in the history of 
his father. Let them lay their fingers on a single article 
in the Declaration of Right^, presented by the two Houses 
to William and Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged 
to have violated. He had, according to the testimony of 
his own friends, usurped the functions of the legislature, 
raised taxes without the consent of Parliament, and quar- 
tered troops on the people in the most illegal and vexatious 
manner. N"ot a single session of Parliament had passed 
without so]ne unconstitutional attack on the freedom of 
debate. The right of petition was grossly violated; 
arbitrary judgments, exorbitant fines, and unwarranted 
imprisonments, were grievances of daily occurrence. If 
these things do not justify resistance, the Revolution was 
treason ; if they do, the Great Rebellion was laudable. 

57. But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures ? 
Why, after the King had consented to so many reforms and 
renounced so many oppressive prerogatives^, did the par- 
liament continue to rise in their demands at the risk of 
provoking a civil war? The ship-money^ had been given 
up. The Star Chamber^ had been abolished. Provision 
had been made for the frequent convocation and secure 
deliberation of parliaments. Why not pursue an end con- 



78 " THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

fessedlj good by peaceable and regular means ? We recnr 
again to the analogy of the Revolution. Why was James 
driven from the throne ? Why was he not retained upon 
conditions ? He too had offered to call a free parliament, 
and to submit to its decision all the matters in dispute. 
Yet we are in the habit of- praising our forefathers, who 
preferred a revolution, a disputed succession, a dynasty of 
strangers, twenty years of foreign and intestine war, a 
standing army, and a national debt, to the rule, however 
restricted, of a tried and proved tyrant. The Long Parlia- 
ment acted on the same principle, and is entitled to the 
same praise. They could not trust the King, He had, no 
doubt, passed salutary laws ; but what assurance was there 
that he would not break them ? He had renounced op- 
pressive prerogatives ; but "where was the security that he 
would not resume them ? The nation had to deal with a 
man whom no tie could bind, a man who made and broke 
promises with equal facility, a man whose honor had been 
a hundred times pawned, and never redeemed. 

58. Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on still 
stronger ground than the Convention of 1688. ISTo action 
of James can be compared to the conduct of Charles with 
respect to the Petition of Right^. The Lords and Com- 
mons present him with a bill in which the constitutional 
limits of his power are marked out. He hesitates ; he 
evades ; at last he bargains to give his assent for five sub- 
sidies. The bill receives his solemn assent: the subsidies 
are voted ; but no sooner is the tyrant relieved than he 
returns at once to all the arbitrary measures which he had 
bound himself to abandon, and violates all the clauses of 
the very Act which he had been paid to pass. 



MILTON. 79 

59. For more than ten years the people had seen the 
rights which were theirs by a double claim, by imme- 
morial inheritance, and by recent purchase, infringed by 
the perfidious King who had recognized them. At length 
circumtitances compelled Charles to summon another par- 
liament : another chance was given to our fathers : were 
they to throw it away as they had thrown away the 
former ? Were they again to be cozened by le Roi le veutf^ 
Were they again to advance their money on pledges which 
had been forfeited over and over again ? Were they to lay 
a second Petition of Right at the foot of the throne, to 
grant another lavish aid in exchange for another unmean- 
ing ceremony, and then to take their departure, till, after 
ten years more of fraud and oppression, their prince should 
again require a supply, and again repay it with a perjury ? 
They were compelled to choose whether they would trust 
a tyrant or conquer him. We think that they chose wisely 
and nobly. 

60. The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of 
other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is 
produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, 
and content themselves with calling testimony to character. 
He had so many private virtues ! And had James the Sec- 
ond no private virtues ? Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitter- 
est enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private 
virtues ? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to 
Charles ? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of 
his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few 
of the ordinary household decencies which half the tomb- 
stones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. 
A good father ! A good husband ! Ample apologies in- 



80 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

deed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and false- 
hood !i 

61. We cliarge him with having broken his coronation 
oatli ; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow ! We 
accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless 
inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prel- 
ates^ ; and the defence is that he took his little son on his 
knee, and kissed him ! We censure him for having violated 
the articles of the Petition of Eight, after having, for 
good and valuable consideration, promised to observe 
them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to 
hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning! It is to such 
considerations as these, together with his Vandyke^ dress, 
his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, 
we verily believe, most of his i)opularity with the present 
generation. 

62. For ourselves, we own that we do not understand 
the common phrase, a good man, but a bad king. We can 
as easily conceive a good man and an unnatural father, or 
a good man and a treacherous friend. AVe cannot, in esti- 
mating the character of an individual, leave out of our 
consideration his conduct in the most important of all 
human relations; and if in that relation we find him to 
have been selfish, cruel, and deceitful, Ave shall take the 
liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of all his temper- 
ance at table, and all his regularity at chapel. 

63. We cannot refrain from adding a few words re- 
specting a topic on which the defenders of Charles are 
fond of dwelling. If, they say, he governed his people ill, 
he at least governed them after the example of his prede- 
cessors. If he violated their privileges, it was because 



MILTON. 81 

those privileges had not been accurately defined, l^o act 
of oppression has ever been imputed to him which has not 
a parallel in the annals of the Tudors^. This point Hume 
has labored, with an art which is as discreditable in a his- 
torical work as it would be admirable in a forensic address. 
The answer is short, clear, and decisive. Charles had 
assented to the Petition of Eight. He had renounced the 
oppressive powers said to have been exercised by his prede- 
cessors, and he had renounced them for money. He was 
not entitled to set up his antiquated claims against his own 
recent release. 

64. These arguments are so obvious that it may seem 
superfluous to dwell upon them. But those who have ob- 
served how much the events of that time are misrepre- 
sented and misunderstood, will not blame us for stating 
the case simpl3^ It is a case of which the simplest state- 
ment is the strongest. 

G5. The enemies of the Parliament, indeed, rarely 
choose to take issue on the great points of the question. 
They content themselves with exposing some of the crimes 
and follies to which public commotions necessarily give 
birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford^. They 
execrate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at 
the Scriptural names of the preachers. Major-generals 
fleecing their districts ; soldiers revelling on the spoils of 
a ruined peasantry; upstarts, enriched by the public 
plunder, taking possession of the hospitable firesides and 
hereditary trees of the old gentry; boys smashing the 
beautiful windows of cathedrals ; Quakers riding naked 
through the market-place; Fifth-monarchy men shouting 
—6 



82 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

for King Jesus; agitators lecturing from the tops of tubs 
on the fate of Agag; — all these, thej tell us, were the 
offspring of the Great Rebellion. 

(36. Be it so. We are not careful to answer in this 
matter. These charges, were they infinitely more im- 
portant, would not alter our opinion of an event which 
alone has made us to differ from the slaves who crouch 
beneath despotic sceptres. Many evils, no doubt, were 
produced by the civil war. They were the price of our 
liberty. Has the acquisition been worth the sacrifice ? It 
is the nature of tlie Devil of tyranny to tear and i-end the 
body which he leaves. Are the miseries of continued pos- 
session less horrible than the struggles of the tremendous 
exorcism ? 

67. If it were possible that a people brought up under 
an intolerant and arbitrary system could subvert that sys- 
tem Avithout acts of cruelty and folly, half the ol^jections 
to despotic pov^'er would be removed. We sh(juld, in that 
case, be compelled to acknowledge that it at least produces 
no ]Dernicious effects on the intellectual and moral charac- 
ter of a nation. We deplore the outrages which accom- 
pany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the 
more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary. The . 
violence of those outrages will always be proportioned to 
the ferocity and ignorance of the people ; and the ferocity 
and ignorance of the people will be proportioned to the 
oppression and degradation under which they have been 
accustomed to live. Thus it was in our civil war. The 
heads of the church and state reaped only that which they 
had sown. The government had prohibited free discus- 
sion ; it had done its best to keep the people unacquainted 



MILTON. 83 

with their duties and their rig-lits. The retribution was 
just and naturaL If our rulers suffered from popular 
ignorance, it was because they had themselves taken away 
the key of knowledge. If they were assailed with blind 
fury, it was because they had exacted an equally blind sub- 
mission. 

68. It is the character of such revolutions that we 
always see the worst of them at first. Till men have been 
some time free, they know not how to use their freedom. 
The natives of wine countries are generally sober. In 
climates where wine is a rarity intemperance abounds. A 
newly liberated people may be compared to a northern 
army encamped on the Rhine or the Xeres. It is said 
that, when soldiers in such a situation first find themselves 
able to indulge without restraint in such a rare and ex- 
pensive luxury, nothing is to be s'een but intoxication. 
Soon, however, plenty teaches discretion; and, after wine 
has been for a few months their daily fare, they become 
more temperate than they had ever been in their ovra 
country. In the same manner, the final and permanent 
fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation, and mercy. Its 
immediate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting 
errors, scepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism on 
points the most mj^sterious. It is just at this crisis that 
its enemies love to exhibit it. They pull down the scaf- 
folding from the half-finished edifice; they point to the 
flying dust, the falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, the 
frightful irregularity of the whole appearance; and then 
ask in scorn where the promised splendor and comfort is 
to be found. If such miserable sophisms^ were to prevail 



84 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

there would never be a good house or a good governmentil 
in the world. | 

69. Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by some^ 
mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear 
at certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous 
snake. Those who injured her during the period of her 
disguise were forever excluded from participation in the 
blessings which she bestowed. But to those who, in spite 
of her loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she 
afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial 
form which was natural to her, accompanied their steps, 
granted all their wishes, tilled their houses with wealth, 
made them happy in love and victorious in war. Such a 
spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful 
reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But woe to 
those who in disgust shall venture to crush her! And 
happy are those who, having dared to receive her in her 
degraded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded 
by her in the time of her beauty and her glory ! 

70. There is only one cure for the evils which newly 
acquired freedom produces; and that cure is freedom. 
'\¥lien a prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot bear the 
light of day: he is unable to discriminate colors, or recog- 
nize faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him into 
his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. 
The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and be- 
wilder nations which have become half blind in the house 
of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be 
able to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. The 
extreme violence of o])inions subsides. Hostile theories 
correct each other. The scattered elements of trutli cease 



MILTON. 85 

to contend, and begin to coalesce. And at lengtli a system 
of justice and order is educed out of the chaos. 

71. Many politicians of our time are in the habit of 
laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people 
ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The 
maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved 
not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If 
men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and 
good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever. 

72. Therefore it is that we decidedly approve of the 
conduct of Milton and the other wise and good men who, 
in spite of much that was ridiculous and hateful in the 
conduct of their associates, stood firmly by the cause of 
Public Liberty. We are not aware that the poet has been 
charged with personal participation in any of the blamable 
excesses of that time. The favorite topic of his enemies 
is the line of conduct which he pursued with regard 
to the execution of the King. Of that celebrated pro- 
ceeding we by no means approve. Still we must say, in 
justice to the many eminent persons who concurred in it, 
and in justice more particularly to the eminent person who 
defended it, that nothing can be more absurd than the im- 
putations which, for the last hundred and sixty years, it 
has been the fashion to cast upon the Regicides. We have, 
throughout, abstained from appealing to first principles. 
We will not appeal to them now. We recur again to the 
parallel case of the Revolution. What essential distinction 
can be drawn between the execution of the father and the 
deposition of the son? What constitutional maxim is 
there which applies to the former and not to the latter ? 
The King can do no wrong. If so, James was as innocent 



86 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

as Charles could have been. The minister only ought to 
be res])onsible for the acts of the Sovereign. If so, why 
not impeach Jeffreys and retain James ? The person of a 
King is sacred. Was the person of James considered 
sacred at the Boyne ? To discharge cannon against an 
army in which a king is known to be posted is to approach 
pretty near to regicide. Charles, too, it should always be 
remembered, was put to death by men who had been ex- 
asperated by the hostilities of several years, and who had 
never been b(rand to liim by any other tie than that which 
was common to them with all their fellow-citizens. Those 
who drove James from his throne, who seduced his army, 
who alienated his friends, who first imprisoned him in his 
palace, and then turned him out of it, who broke in upon 
his very slumbers by imperious messages, who pursued 
him with fire and sword from one part of the empire to 
another, who hanged, drew, and quartered his adherents, 
and attainted his innocent heir, Avere his nephew and his 
two daughters. When we reflect on all these things, we 
are at a loss to conceive how the same persons who, on the 
fifth of November^, thank God for wonderfully conduct- 
ing his servant William, and for making all opposition 
fall before him until he became our King and Governor, 
can, on the thirtieth of January, contrive"" to be afraid that 
the blood of the Eoyal Martyr may be visited on them- 
selves and their children. 

T3. We disapprove, we repeat, of the execution of 
Charles; not because the constitution exempts the King 
from responsibility, for we know that all such maxims, 
however excellent, have their exceptions ; nor because we 
feel any peculiar interest in his character, for we thinks , 



MILTON. 87 

that his sentence describes him with perfect jnstice as '^a 
tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy;" but 
because we are convinced that the measure was most in- 
jurious to the cause of freedom. He whom it removed was 
a captive and a hostage : his heir, to whom the allegiance 
of every Eoyalist was instantly transferred, was at large. 
The Presbyterians could never have been perfectly recon- 
ciled to the father ; they had no such rooted enmity to the 
son. The great body of the people, also, contemplated that 
proceeding with feelings which, however unreasonable, no 
government could safely venture to outrage. 

74. But though we think the conduct of the Eegicides 
blamable, that of Milton appears to us in a very different 
light. The deed was done. It could not be undone. The 
evil was incurred ; and the object was to render it as small 
as possible. We censure the chiefs of the army for not 
yielding to the popular opinion; but we cannot censure 
Milton for wishing to change that o])inion. The very feel- 
ing which would have restrained us from committing the 
act, would have led us, after it had been committed, to 
defend it against the ravings of servility and superstition. 
For the sake of public liberty we wish that the thing had 
not been done while the people disapproved of it. But, for 
the sake of public liberty, we should also have wished the 
people to approve of it when it Avas done. If anything 
more were wanting to the justification of Milton, the book 
of Salmasius^ would furnish it. That miserable perform- 
ance is now with justice considered only as a beacon to 
word-catchers who wish to become statesmen. The celeb- 
rity of the man who refuted it, the "/Eneie magni dex- 
tra,"^ gives it all its fame with the present generation. 



88 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

In that age the state of things was different. It was not 
then fullj understood how vast an interval separates the 
mere classical scholar from the political philosopher. ISTor 
can it be doubted that a treatise which, bearing the name 
of so eminent a critic, attacked the fundamental principles 
of all free governments, must, if suffered to remain unan- 
swered, have produced a most pernicious effect on the 
public mind. 

75. We wish to add a few words relative to another sub- 
ject, on which the enemies of Milton delight to dwell, — 
his conduct during the administration of the Protector^. 
That an enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept office 
under a military usurper seems, no doubt, at first sight, 
extraordinary. But all the circumstances in which the 
country was then placed were extraordinary. The ambi- 
tion of Oliver was of no vulgar kind. lie never seems to 
have coveted despotic power. He at first fought sincerely 
and manfully for the Parliament, and never deserted it 
till it had deserted its duty. If he dissolved it by force, 
it was not till he found that the few members who re- 
mained after so many deaths, secessions, and expulsions, 
were desirous to appropriate to themselves a power which 
they held only in trust, and to inflict upon England the 
curse of a Venetian oligarchy-. But even when thus 
placed by violence at the head of affairs, he did not assume 
unlimited power. He gave the country a constitution far 
more perfect than any which had at that time been known 
in the world. He reformed the representative system in a 
manner which has extorted praise even from Lord Claren- 
don. For himself he demanded indeed the first place in 
the commonwealth; but with powers scarcely so great as 



MILTON. 89 

those of a Dutch stadtholder or an American president. 
He gave the Parliament a voice in the appointment of 
ministers, and left to it the whole legislative authority, 
not even reserving to himself a veto on its enactments; 
and he did not require that the chief magistracy should 
be hereditary in his family. Thus far, we think, if the 
circumstances of the time and the opportunities which 
he had of aggrandizing himself be fairly considered, he 
will not lose by comparison with Washington or Bolivar^. 
Had his moderation been met by corresponding modera- 
tion, there is no reason to think that he would have over- 
stepped the line which he had traced for himself. But 
when he found that his parliaments questioned the 
anthority under which they met, and that he was in dan- 
ger of being deprived of the restricted power which was 
absolutely necessary to his personal safety, then, it must 
be acknowledged, he adopted a more arbitrary policy. 

76. Yet, though we believe that the intentions of Crom- 
well were at first honest, though we believe that he was 
dri^'on from the noble course which he had marked out 
for himself l)y the almost irresistible force of circum- 
stances, though we admire, in common with all men of all 
parties, the ability and energy of his splendid administra- 
tion, we are not pleading for arbitrary and lawless power, 
even in his hands. We know that a good constitution is 
infinitely better than the best despot. But we suspect, that 
at the time of which we speak, the violence of religious 
and political enmities rendered a stable and happy settle- 
ment next to impossible. The choice lay, not between 
Cromwell and liberty, but between Cromwell and the 
Stuarts. That Milton chose vrell, no man can doubt who 



90 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

fairly compares the events of the protectorate with those of 
the thirty years which succeeded it, the darkest and most 
disgraceful in the English annals, Cromwell was evidently 
laying, though in an irregular manner, the foundations 
of an admirable system. IS^ever before had religious 
liberty and the freedom of discussion been enjoyed in a 
greater degree. T^ever had the national honor been better 
upheld abroad, or the scat of justice better filled at home. 
And it was rarely that any opposition which stop])ed short 
of open rebellion provoked the resentment of the liberal 
and magnanimous usur]jer. The institutions which he 
had established, as set down in the Instrument of Govern- 
ment^ and the Humble Petition^ and Advice, were excel- 
lent. His practice, it is true, too often departed from 
the theT)ry of these institutions. But had he lived a few 
years longer, it is probable that his institutions would 
have survived him, and that his arbitrary practice would 
have died with him. His power had not been consecrated 
by ancient prejudices. It was upheld only by his great 
personal qualities. Little, therefore, was to be dreaded 
from a second protector, unless he were also a second 
Oliver Cromwell. The events which followed his decease 
are the most complete vindication of those who exerted 
themselves to uphold his authority. His death dissolved 
the whole frame of society. The army rose against the 
Parliament, the different corps of the army against each 
other. Sect raved against sect. Party plotted against 
party. The Presbyterians, in their eagerness to be re- 
venged on the Independents^, sacrificed their own liberty, 
and deserted all their old principles. Without casting one 
glance on the past, or requiring one stipulation for the 



MILTON". 91 

future, they threw down their freedom at the feet of the 
most frivolous and heartless of tyrants. 

77. Then came those days, never to be recalled with- 
out a blush, the days of servitude without loyalty, and 
sensuality without love ; of dwarfish talents and gigantic 
vices ; the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds ; the 
golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The 
King cringed to his rival that he might trample on his 
people, sank into a viceroy of France, and pocketed with 
complacent infamy her degrading insults and her more 
degrading gold. The caresses of harlots, and the jests of 
buffoons, regulated the policy of the state. The govern- 
ment had just ability enough to deceive, and just religion 
enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were 
the scoff of every grinning courier, and the Anathema 
Maranatha of every fawning dean. In every high place, 
worship was paid to Charles and James, Belial and Mo- 
loch^ ; and England propitiated those obscene and cruel 
idols with the blood of her best and bravest children. 
Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till 
the race, accursed of God and man, was a second time 
driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to 
be a byword and a shaking of the head to the nations. 

78. Most of the remarks which we have hitherto made 
on the public character of Milton, apply to him only as 
one of a large body. We shall jiroceed to notice some of 
the peculiarities which distinguished him from his con- 
temporaries. And for that purpose it is necessary to take 
a short survey of the parties into which the political world 
was at that time divided. We must premise that our 
observations are intended to apply only to those who ad- 



92 THE CKAKE CLASSICS. 

hered, from a sincere preference, to one or to the other 
side. In days of public commotion every faction, like an 
Oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp-followers, 
a useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of 
march in the hope of picking up something under its pro- 
tection, but desert it in the day of battle, and often join 
to exterminate it after a defeat. England, at the time of 
which we are treating, abounded with fickle and selfish 
politicians, who transferred their support to every gov- 
ernment as it rose; who kissed the hand of the King in 
1640, and spat in his face in 1649 ; who shouted with 
equal glee when Cromwell was inaugurated in West- 
minster Hall, and when he was dug up to be hanged at 
Tyburn; who dined on calves' heads, or stuck up oak- 
branches, as circumstances altered, without the slightest 
shame or repugnance. These we leave out of the account. 
We take our estimate of parties from those who really de- 
serve to be called partisans. 

79. We would speak first of the Puritans, the most re- 
markable body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever 
produced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their char- 
acter lie on the surface. He that runs may read them; 
nor have there been wanting attentive and malicious ob- 
servers to point them out. For many years after the 
Restoration, they were the theme of unmeasured invective 
and derision. They were exposed to the utmost licentious- 
ness of the press and of the stage, at the time when the 
press and the stage were most licentious. They were not 
men of letters; they were, as a body, unpopular; they 
could not defend themselves; and the public would 
not take them under its protection. They were therefore 



MILTON-. 93 

abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the 
satirists and dramatists^. The ostentatious simplicity of 
their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff 
posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scrip- 
tural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, 
their contempt of human learning, their detestation of 
polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. 
But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy 
of history is to be learned. And he who approaches this 
subject should carefully guard against the influence of that 
potent ridicule which has already misled so many excellent 
writers. 

"Eeco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio 
Che mortali perigli in se contiene: 
Hor qui tener a fien nostro desio, 
Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene.^ " 

80, Those who roused the people to resistance; who 
directed their measures through a long series of eventful 
years; who formed, out of the most unpromising ma- 
terials, the finest army that Europe had ever seen ; who 
trampled down King, Church, and Aristocracy; who, in 
the short intervals of domestic sedition and rebellion, made 
the name of England terrible to every nation on the face 
of the earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their ab- 
surdities were mere external badges, like the signs of 
freemasonry, or the dresses of friars^. We regret that 
these badges were not more attractive. We regret that 
a body to whose courage and talents mankind has owed 
inestimable obligations had not the lofty elegance which 
distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the First, 
or the easy good-breeding for which the Court of Charles 



94 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

the Second was celebrated. But, if we must make our 
choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the 
specious caskets which contain only the Death's head and 
the Fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden chest^ which 
conceals the treasure. 

81. The Puritans were men whose minds had derived 
a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of 
superior beings and eternal interests. ISTot content with 
acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Provi- 
dence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of 
the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, 
for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know 
him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great 
end of existence. Thej' rejected with contempt the cere- 
monious homage which other sects substituted for the 
pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional 
glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they 
aspired to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, and to 
commune with him face to face. Hence originated their 
contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference be- 
tween the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to 
vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which 
separated the whole race from him on whom their own 
eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to 
superiority but his favor ; and, confident of that favor, 
they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities 
of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works 
of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the 
oracles of God. If their names were not found in the 
registers of heralds^, they were recorded in the Book of 
Life^. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid 



MILTON". 95 

train of menials, legions of ministering angels^ had cliarge 
over them. Their palaces were houses not made with 
hands ; their diadems crowns of glory which should never 
fade away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles 
and priests, they looked down with contempt; for they 
esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and 
eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by the right 
of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a 
mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being 
to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance be- 
longed, on whose slightest action the spirits of light and 
darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been des- 
tined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a 
felicity which should continue when heaven and earth 
should have passed away. Events which short-sighted 
politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained 
on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and 
flourished and decayed. • For his sake the Almighty had 
proclaimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist and the 
harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common 
deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been 
ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of 
no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had 
been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead 
liad risen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings 
of her expiring God. 

82. Thus the Puritan was made up of two different 
men, the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, pas- 
sion; the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He 
prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker; but he 
set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional 



96 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and 
tears. He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illu- 
sions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting 
whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific 
Vision^, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting 
fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the 
sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried 
in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face from 
him. But when he took his seat in the council, or girt on 
his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul 
had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who 
saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and 
heard nothing from them but their groans and their whin- 
ing hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little 
reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of de- 
bate or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought to 
civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment and an 
immutability of purpose which some writers have thought 
inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were in 
fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their 
feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. 
One q,verpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity 
and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors 
and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their 
tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the 
things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, 
had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and 
prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger 
and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pur- 
sue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They 
went through the world, like Sir Artegal's iron man 



MILTOIST. 97 

Taliis^ with his flail, crushing and trampling down op- 
pressors, mingling with human heings, but having neither 
part nor lot in human infirmities ; insensible to fatigue, to 
pleasure, and to pain; not to be pierced by any weapon, 
not to be withstood by any barrier. 

83. Such we believe to have been the character of the 
Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners. 
We dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. We 
acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often in- 
jured by straining after things too high for mortal reach ; 
and we know that in spite of their hatred of popery, they 
too often fell into the worst vices of that bad system, in- 
tolerance and extravagant austerity; that they had their 
anchorites^ and their crusades, their Dunstans^ and their 
De Montforts^, their Dominies and their Escobars. Yet, 
when all circumstances are taken into consideration, we 
do not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise, an hon- 
est, and a useful body. 

84. The Puritans espoused the cause of civil liberty 
maiidy because it was the cause of religion. There was 
another party, by no means numerous, but distinguished 
by learning and ability, which acted with them on very 
different principles. We speak of those whom Cromwell 
was accustomed to call the Heathens, men who were, in 
the phraseology of that time, doubting Thomases^, or care- 
less Gallios^ with regard to religious subjects, but passion- 
ate worshippers of freedom. Heated by the study of 
ancient literature, they set up their country as their idol, 
and proposed to themselves the heroes of Plutarch^ as 
their examples. They seem to have borne some resem- 

—7 



98 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

blance to the Brissotines* of the French Revolution. But 
it is not very easy to draw the line of distinction between 
them and their devout associates, whose tone and manner 
they sometimes found it convenient to affect, and some- 
times, it is probable, imperceptibly adopted. 

85. We now come to the Royalists. We shall attempt 
to speak of them, as we have spoken of their antagonists, 
with perfect candor. We shall not charge upon a whole 
party the profligacy and baseness of the horse-boys^, gam- 
blers, and bravoes, whom the hope of license and plunder 
attracted from all the dens of Whitefriars^ to the standard 
of Charles, and who disgraced their associates by excesses 
which, under the stricter discipline of the Parliamentary 
armies, were never tolerated. We will select a more 
favorable specimen. Thinking as we do that the cause of 
the King was the cause of bigotry and tyranny, we yet 
cannot refrain from looking with complacency on the char- 
acter of the honest old Cavaliers. We feel a national pride 
in comparing them with the instruments which the despots 
of other countries are compelled to employ, with the mutes 
who throng their antechambers, and the Janissaries^ who 
mount guard at their gates. Our royalist countrymen 
were not heartless, dangling courtiers, bowing at every 
step, and simpering at every word. They were not mere 
machines for destruction, dressed up in uniforms, caned 
into skill, intoxicated into valor, defending without love, 
destroying without hatred. There was a freedom in their 
subserviency, a nobleness in their very degradation. The 
sentiment of individual independence was strong within 
them. They were indeed misled, but by no base or selfish 
motive. Compassion and romantic honor, the prejudices 



MILTON. 99 

of childhood, and the venerable names of history, threw 
over them a spell potent as that of Dnessa ; and, like the 
Eed-Cross Knight, they thonght that they were doing bat- 
tle for an injured beauty, while they defended a false and 
loathsome sorceress. In truth, they scarcely entered at all 
into the merits of the ]">olitical question. It was not for a 
treacherous king or an' intolerant church that they fought, 
but for the old banner which had waved in so many battles 
over the heads of their fathers, and for the altars at which 
they liad received the hands of their brides. Though 
nothing could be more erroneous than their political opin- 
ions, they possessed, in a far greater degree than their 
adversaj-ies, those qualities which are the grace of private 
life. With many of the vices of the Round Table^, 
they had also many of its virtues, — courtesy, generosity, 
veracity, tenderness, and respect for women. They had 
far more both of profound and of polite learning than the 
Puritans. Their manners were more engaging, their tem- 
pers more amiable, their tastes more elegant, and their 
households more cheerful*. 

86. Milton did not strictly belong to any of the classes 
which we have described. Tie was not a Puritan. He 
was not a free-thinker. He was not a Royalist. In his 
character the noblest qualities of every party were com- 
bined in harmonious union. From the Parliament and 
from the Court, from the conventicle and from the Gothic^ 
cloister, from the gloomy and sepulchral circles of the 
Roundheads, and from the Christmas revel of the hos- 
pitable Cavalier, his nature selected and drew to itself 
whatever was great and good, while it rejected all the base 



L.ofC. 



100 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

and pernicious ingredients by wliicli those finer elements 
were defiled. Like the Puritans, he lived 
"As ever in his great task-master's eye." 

Like them, he kept his mind continually fixed on an Al- 
mighty Judge and an eternal reward. And hence he 
acquired their contempt of external circumstances, their 
fortitude, their tranquillity, their inflexible resolution. 
But not the coolest sceptic or the most profane scoffer was 
more perfectly free from the contagion of their frantic 
delusions, their savage manners, their ludicrous jargon, 
their scorn of science, and their aversion to pleasure. Hat- 
ing tyranny with a ]3erfect hatred, he had nevertheless all 
the estimable and ornamental qualities which were almost 
entirely monopolized by the party of the tyrant. There 
was none who had a stronger sense of the value of litera- 
ture, a finer relish for every elegant amusement, or a more 
chivalrous delicacy of honor and love. Though his opin- 
ions were democratic, his tastes and his associations were 
such as harmonize best with monarchy and aristocracy. 
He was under the influence of all the feelings by which 
the gallant Cavaliers were misled. But of those feelings 
he was the master and not the slave. Like the hero of 
Homer^, he enjoyed all the pleasures of fascination; but 
he was not fascinated. He listened to the song of the 
Sirens; yet he glided by without being seduced to their 
fatal shore. He tasted the cup of Circe^ ; but he bore 
about him a sure antidote against the effects of its be- 
witching sweetness. The illusions which captivated his 
imagination never impaired his reasoning powers. The 
statesman was proof against the splendor, the solemnity, 



MILTON. 101 

and the romance which enchanted the poet. Any person 
who will contrast the sentiments expressed in his treatises 
on Prelacy^ with the exquisite lines on ecclesiastical archi- 
tecture and music in the Penseroso, which was published 
about the same time, will understand our meaning. This 
is an inconsistency which, more than anything else, raises 
his character in our estimation, because it shows how many 
private tastes and feelings he sacrificed, in order to do 
what he considered his duty to mankind. It is the very 
struggle of the noble Othello. His heart relents; but his 
hand is firm. He does naught in hate, but all in honor^. 
He kisses the beautiful deceiver before he destroys her. 

87. That from which the public character of Milton 
derives its great and peculiar splendor, still remains to be 
mentioned. If he exerted himself to overthrow a forsworn 
king and a persecuting hierarchy, he exerted himself in 
conjunction with others. But the glory of the battle which 
he fought for the species of freedom which is the most 
valuable, and which was then the least understood, the 
freedom of the human mind, is all his own. Thousands and 
tens of thousands among his contemporaries raised their 
voices against ship-money and the Star Chamber. But 
there were few indeed who discerned the more fearful evils 
of moral and intellectual slavery, and the benefits which 
would result from the liberty of the press and the un- 
fettered exercise of private judgment. These were the 
objects which Milton justly conceived to be the most im- 
portant. He was desirous that the people should think 
for themselves as well as tax themselves, and should be 
emancipated from the dominion of prejudice as well as 
from that of Charles. He knew that those who^ with the 



102 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

best intentions, overlooked these schemes of reform, and 
contented themselves with pnlling down the King and im- 
prisoning the malignants, acted like the heedless brothers 
in his own poem^, who, in their eagerness ,to disperse the 
train of the sorcerer, neglected the means of liberating the 
captive. They thought only of conquering when they 
should have thought of disenchanting. 

" Oh, ye mistook! Ye should have snatched his wand 
And bound him fast. Without the rod reversed, 
And backward mutters of dissevering power, 
We cannot free the lady that sits here 
Bound in strong fetters, fixed and motionless.^ " 

88. To reverse the rod, to spell the charm backward, 
to break the ties which bound a stupefied people to the seat 
of enchantment, was the noble aim of Milton. To this all 
his public conduct was directed. For this he joined the 
Presbyterians; for this he forsook them. He fought 
their perilous battle ; but he turned away with disdain 
from their insolent triumph. He saw that they, like those 
whom they had vanquished, were hostile to the liberty of 
thought. He therefore joined the Independents, and 
called uj)on Cromwell to break the secular chain, and to 
save free conscience from the paw of the Presbyterian wolf. 
With a view to the same great object, he attacked the 
licensing system^, in that sublime treatise^ which every 
statesman should wear as a sign upon his hand and as 
frontlets between his eyes. His attacks were, in general, 
directed less against particular abuses than against those 
deeply seated errors on which almost all abuses are 
founded, the servile worship of eminent men and the irra- 
tional dread of innovation. 



MILTON. 103 

89. That he might shake the foundations of these de- 
basing sentiments more effectually, he always selected for 
himself the boldest literary services. He never came up 
in the rear, when the outworks had been carried and the 
breach entered. He pressed into the forlorn hope. At 
the beginning of the changes, he wrote with incomparable 
energy and eloquence against the bishops. But, when his 
opinion seemed likely to prevail, he passed on to other 
subjects, and abandoned prelacy to the crowd of writers 
who now hastened to insult a falling party. There is no 
more hazardous enterprise than that of bearing the torch 
of truth into those dark and infected recesses in which 
no light has ever shone. But it was the choice and the 
pleasure of Milton to penetrate the noisome vapors, and 
to brave the terrible explosion. Those who most disap' 
prove of his opinions must respect the hardihood with 
which he maintained them. He, in general, left to others 
the credit of expounding and defending the popular parts 
of his religious and political creed. He took his own 
stand upon those which the great body of his countrymen 
reprobated as criminal, or derided as paradoxical. He 
stood up for divorce and regicide. He attacked the pre- 
vailing systems of education. His radiant and beneficent 
career resembled that of the god of light and fertility : — 

"Nitor in adversum; nee me, qui csetera, vincit 
Impetus, et rapido contrarius evehor orbi.* " 

90. It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Mil- 
ton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, 
they deserve the attention of every man who Avishes to 
become acquainted with the full power of the English 
language. They abound with passages compared with 



104 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

which the finest declamations of Burke^ sink into insig- 
nificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The 
style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the 
earlier books of the Paradise Lost has the great poet 
ever risen higher than in those parts of his contro- 
versial works in which his feelings, excited by conflict, 
find a vent in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It 
is, to borrow his own majestic language, " a sevenfold 
chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies. "^ 

91. We had intended to look more closely at these per- 
formances, to analyze the peculiarities of the diction, 
to dwell at some length on the sublime wisdom of the 
Areopagitica rnd the nervous rhetoric of the Iconoclast, 
and to point out some of those magnificent passages which 
occur in the Treatise of Reformation, and the Animad- 
versions on the Remonstrant. But the length to which our 
remarks have already extended renders this impossible. 

92. We must conclude. And yet we can scarcely tear 
ourselves away from the subject. The days immediately 
following the publication of this relic of Milton appear 
to be peculiarly set apart, and consecrated to his memory. 
And we shall scarcely be censured if, on this his festival, 
we be found lingering near his shrine, how worthless 
soever may be the offering which we bring to it. While 
this book lies on our table, we seem to be contemporaries 
of the writer. We are transported a hundred and fifty 
years back. We can almost fancy that we are visiting 
him in his small lodging; that we see him sitting at the 
old organ beneath the faded green hangings ; that we can 
catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, rolling in vain to find 
the day; that we are reading in the lines of his noble 



MILTOJSI. l05 

countenance the proud and mournful history of his glory 
and his affliction. We image to ourselves the breathless 
silence in which we should listen to his slightest word; 
the passionate veneration with which we should laieel to 
kiss his hand and weep upon it ; the earnestness with 
which we should endeavor to console him, if indeed such 
a spirit could need consolation, for the neglect of an age 
unworthy of his talents and his virtues; the eagerness 
with which v/c should contest with his daughters, or with 
his Quaker friend Elhvood^, tlie ])rivilege of reading 
Homer to him, or of taking down the immortal accents 
which flowed from his lips. 

93. These are perhaps foolish feelings. Yet we cannot 
be ashamed of them; nor shall we be sorry if what we 
have written shall in any degree excite them in other 
minds. We are not much in the habit of idolizing either 
the living or the dead. And we think that there is no 
more certain indication of a weak and ill-regulated intel- 
lect than that propensity which, for want of a better name, 
we will venture to christen Boswellism^. But there are a 
few characters which have stood the closest scrutiny and 
the severest tests, which have been tried in the furnace and 
have proved pure, which have been weighed in the balance 
and have not been found wanting, which have been de- 
clared sterling by the general consent of mankind, and 
which are visibly stamped with the image and superscrip- 
tion of the Most High. These great men we trust that we 
know how to prize ; and of these was Milton. The sight 
of his books, the sound of his name, are pleasant to us. 
His thoughts resemble those celestial fruits and flowers 
which the Virgin Martyr of Massinger^ sent down from 



106 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

the gardens of Paradise to tlie earth, and which were dis- 
tinguished from the productions of other soils, not only 
by sujDcrior bloom and sweetness, but by miraculous 
efficacy to invigorate and to heal. They are powerful, not 
only to delight, but to elevate and purify. 'Nov do we envy 
the man who can study either the life or the writings of 
the great poet and patriot, without aspiring to emulate, 
not indeed the sublime works with which his genius has 
enriched our literature, but the zeal with which he labored 
for the public good, the fortitude with which he endured 
every private calamity, the lofty disdain with which he 
looked down on temptations and dangers, the deadly hatred 
which he bore to bigots and tyrants, and the faith which 
he so sternly kept with his country and with his fame. 



ISrOTES. 

1. Title of the book revieiced. Literally: "Of John Milton, 
Entrlishman, Two Posthumous Books concerning the Christian Doc- 
trine." Like many of the other literary and historical essays, this 
one begins as a book review, but it will be found that the essay 
2)roper is something quite apart from a dissertation on this book. 

1. 1. Secretary. At the time of Milton the main duty of the 
Secretary was to take charge of the diplomatic correspondence with 
foreign courts. Milton's duties, however, included much more. (See 
Introduction. ) 

2. Popish Trials. Dr. Titus Gates, together with several other 
unscrupulous persons, invented the story of a plot purported to be 
directed against the life of the King. Its object, they asserted, was 
to establish James on the throne, and thereby to bring England 
back to the Catholic l.iith. 

3. Rye-house Plot. A conspiracy in 1683 against Charles II. and 
his brother. Its purpose as alleged was to remove persons standing 
in the way of a Protestant succession. The conspirators had selected 
a farm-building called the Lye-house, from which the attack was 
to be made as the King and his brother were on their way from 
Newmarket to London. The journey happened to be delayed; the 
plot became known, and the conspirators were brought to justice. 

4. Anthony Wood (1632-1695) wrote a "History of the Univer- 
sity of Oxford " and a biographical work, Athenae Oxonienses, which 
includes a life of Milton. 

5. John Toland (1670-1722) was a Catholic, but became converted 
to Protestantism in his fiftieth year. In 1698 he published his 
" Life of Milton." 

6. It appears that Daniel Skinner, a relative of Cyriac Skinner, 
was employed by Milton as amanuensis; he assisted in the prepara- 
tion of this manuscript, and the year after Milton's death, took it 
to Elzivir, of Amsterdam, to have it printed. This publisher found 
in it many things, however, which he thought it unwise to publish. 
He communicated his views to the English government, with the 

(107) 



108 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

result that the publication was suppressed; the manuscript was 
brought back to England and left among the state papers in the 
office of the Secretary of State. 

3. 1. As standards of excellence these two universities held up, 
in prose, Cicero; in verse, Virgil. 

2. Pharificrs. The assumed superiority of these writers is here 
compared with the sect of Jews mentioned and described in the 
New Testament. 

3. Quint ilian, Marcus Fuhius (42-118). He is the author of 
Institutiones Oratoriae, in twelve books. He was a distinguished 
pleader and orator at Rome, and inclined to reject everything that 
did not conform to classic models. 

4. " That would have made" etc. Milton's Sonnet XI. 

5. Sir John Dcnham (1615-1678). A poet belonging to the party 
of the Royalists. He followed Charles II. to France in exile. After 
the Restoration he returned to England, and was rewarded by the 
King for his loyalty. Denham is the author of " Cooper's Hill," a 
poem noted for its description of English scenery. 

6. Abraham Cowley (1618-1667). Another Royalist poet. He 
wrote odes, some prose, and translated classic authors. His 
" Poetical Blossoms " and "Anacreontics " have made him distin- 
guished as a poet. 

Digest. Primarily applied to corhpilations of Roman law; now 
it means any ordered arrangement of single literary units into an 
organic system. 

5. 1. Arianism. Arius died 336. His views regarding the na- 
ture of Christ were denounced by the Coimcil of Nicaja, 325. 

2. Between the. years 1643-1645 Milton had Avritten five treatises 
on the subject of divorce. His opinions as here expressed are 
radical ; he states that when there is no longer any love between 
the persons married, the union may be dissolved by common consent. 

7. 1. Capuchins. An order of Franciscan monks founded in 
Italy, in 1526. This reference is characteristic of Macaulay in this, 
that it is self-elucidating. The reference is sufficiently explained to 
serve its purpose of giving clearness and force to the thought whether 
the term " Capuchins " is familiar to the reader or not. 

2. Macaulay states his purpose and his theme fairly in para- 
graph 7. He avails himself of the added interest in the poet, 



NOTES. 109 

aroused by the discovery of a posthumous work, to bring before the 
public a critical estimate of Milton, the writer and patriot. 

9. 1. Johnson. Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was the prin- 
cipal figure in English letters and criticism during the latter half 
of the eighteenth century. He studied at Oxford, but lacked the 
means necessary to complete his education so far as to take the 
usual academic degrees. In 1737 he drifted to London, and began 
a struggle against poverty which lasted twenty-five years. During 
tins time he did hack work for publishers, writing prefaces and 
introductions, preparing indexes and compilations. In 1755 he 
brought out a "Dictionary of the English Language"; in 1781 
appeared his " Lives of tlie English Poets." He received from the 
government a pension of three hundred pounds, in 17G2. Johnson 
wrote an elegant though somewhat nea\'y and highly Latinized 
style-. He had a powerful intellect, strong prejudices, and was a 
faithful adherent of Koyalist principles. Up to the time of Macaulay, 
Johnson's critical opinions on Milton and his works had generally 
prevailed. 

2. Clumsy ridicule. Macaulay's strictures are directed against 
passages like the following, which occur in Johnson's biography of 
Milton : 

" There prevailed in his [Milton's] time an opinion that the 
world was in its decay, and that we have had the misfortune to be 
produced in the decrejntude of Nature. It was suspected tliat the 
whole creation languished, that neither trees nor animals had the 
height or bulk of their predecessors, and that everything was daily 
sinking by gi'adual diminution. Milton appears to suspect that 
souls partake of the general degeneracy, and is not without some 
fear that his book is to be written in an age too late for heroick 
poesy. — Another opinion wanders about the world, and sometimes 
finds reception among wise men; an opinion that restrains the 
operations of the mind to particular regions, and supposes that a 
luckless mortal may^be born in a degree of latitude too high or too 
low for wisdom or for wit. From this fancy, wild as it is, he had 
not wholly cleared his liead, when he feared lest the climate of his 
country might be too cold for flights of imagination. — Into a mind 
already occupied by such fancies, another not more reasonable might 
easily find its way. He that could fear lest his genius had fallen 
upon too old a world, or too chill a climate, might consistently 
magnify to himself the influence of the seasons, and believe his 
faculties to be vigorous only half the year. — His submission to the 
seasons was at least more" reasonable than his dread of decaying 
Nature, or a frigid zone; for general causes must operate uni- 
formly in a general abatement of mental power ; if less could be 



110 THE CKANE CLASSICS. 

performed by the writer, less likewise would content the judges of 
his work. Among this lagging race of frosty grovellers he might 
still have risen into eminence by producing something which they 
should not willingly let die. However inferior to the heroes who 
were born in better ages, he might still be great among his con- 
temporaries, with the hope of growing every day greater in the 
dwindle of posterity. He might still be a giant among the pygmies, 
the one-eyed monarch of the blind." 

10. 1- Paragraph 10. " We think that as civilization advances, 
poetry almost necessarily declines." Macaulay lays down this 
proposition with a confidence that is by no means invariably shared 
by his reader. Were there no minor poets and no inferior produc- 
tions in the early ages? Do the disadvantages arising from a 
highly developed state of society hamper only the writer of poetry, 
or is the element of poetry as it exists in life also hindered by the 
same cause? Note also the discussion of "language the machine 
of the poet" {![12), and compare with it 1124. It may be that 
Macaulay had in mind just passages like these, when he, eighteen 
years later, Avrote in the preface to the collection of his essays: 
" The criticism on Milton, which was written when the author was 
just from college, contains scarcely a paragraph such as his matured 
judgment approves." 

11. 1. Montague. Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax (16G1- 
1715) was a famous financier under William III. He was Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer, and helped to found the Bank of England. 

2. Walpole. Sir Robert Walpole . (1676-1745) was one of the 
foremost statesmen of Europe during the eighteenth century. He 
was a leader of the Whigs in the House of Commons, but fell into 
decline with his party during the Tory supremacy under Queen 
Anne. Later he held the position of Minister of Finance under 
George II. He established and regulated the excise duties, and was 
active in creating a revenue system based on sound principles. 

3. Sir Isaac Neivton (1642-1727), one of the world's greatest 
geniuses in the provinces of mathematics and the natural sciences. 

13. 1. Lord Shaftesbury (1671-1713) received a classical educa- 
tion, directed partly by the philosopher John Locke. In his work, 
" Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times," he holds that 
beauty and virtue are necessarily united, and that the reaching out 
after beauty impelled by an innate moral sense was at the same 
time a reaching-out after virtue. 



NOTES. Ill 

2. Eclevetius (1715-1771) was a vain Parisian, who, when Mon- 
tesquieu's " Esprit des Lois " appeared, set about writing a book 
of his own, " 8ur V Esprit," in which he lays down the principle 
that all human actions spring from self-interest. 

3. Nioie. In 'accordance with the Greek myth, she was the 
daughter of Tantalus and wife of King Amphion of Thebes. She 
took great pride in her seven sons and seven daughters, and tried 
to lead the Thebans from the worship of Latona, because this deity 
had only two children, Artemis and Apollo. For this act her 
children were slain, and she was herself changed into a rock which 
continued to shed tears. 

4. Atirora. She was the goddess of dawn. In paintings she is 
usually represented as a maiden with glowing cheeks. 

5. Fahle of the Bees. A story written by Mandeville, and brought 
out in London in 1706. It pictures human society in the guise of 
a swarm of bees, and presents some startling theories about the pur- 
pose of vice as a factor in the economy of society. 

6. lago. The name of a noted villain in Shakespeare's " Othello." 

14. 1. "As imagination bodies forth," etc. Midsummer Night's 
Dream, Act V., Sc. 1. 

15. 1. Rhapsodists. Greek minstrels who in the form of songs, 
presented portions of the Iliad and the Odyssey. 

2. Plato. He was the greatest philosopher of ancient Greece. 
He was born in Athens, 428 B. C, and died 348. Macaulay's views 
of poetry as a species of madness accorded with the views held by 
Plato. For these reasons poets were not allowed in Plato's ideal 
republic. 

3. Mohawk. A fierce and powerful tribe of Che Iroquois. In 
the early history of our country, they lived in what is now the 
State of New York. They formed one of the Six Nations. 

4. Bards. The bards of ancient Britain and northern Europe 
formed a distinct caste. Their duties were to celebrate, at the 
festivals of the nobles, the deedg of gods and heroes, and by their 
songs to inspire the soldiers in battle. Their presence at many 
battles, as that of Hastings and the Boyne, is a matter of historic 
record. In Ireland the latest of Irish bards died in 1737. 

17. 1. "He who in an enlightened age," etc. Macaulay has in 
mind the theory of Wordsworth, who laid down the dictum that 



112 THE CKANE CLASSICS. 

the best poetry can be written only by a return to the simple 
language of the common people. 

18. 1. Petrarch (1304-1374) was a champion of classic learn- 
ing. He wrote an epic and some eclogues in Latin, but his fame 
as a poet rests mainly on his Italian lyrics. 

2. " Cowley with all his" etc. A comparison between the Latin 
diction of these two writers has already been made. Does the opinion 
here stated differ in anj^ way from that of paragraph 3? 

19. 1. Manso. Gambattista Manso, Marquis of Villa, was a 
nobleman of Naples. He was a true patron of poets. Milton met 
him on his Italian journey; in parting from him, Milton wrote in 
his honor an elegant poem in Latin hexameter, the " Epistle to 
Manso." 

2. "About him exercised," etc. Paradise Lost, IV, 551-554. 

3. Panoply. A Greek word meaning originally the entire equip- 
ment of the hea\'7-armed Athenian foot-soldier, which comprised 
shield, helmet, breastplate, shin-guards, sword, and lance. 

21. 1. Iliad. The Homeric epic which deals with the war of 
Troy. 

22. 1. " Open Sesame." From the story of "Ali Baba and the. 
Forty Thieves," in the Arabian Nights. 

2. Dryden. John Dryden (1631-1700). England's most promi- 
nent poet during the latter half of the seventeenth century. Among 
other works, he composed an opera in which portions of Paradise 
Lost are found in rhymed form. 

23. 1. Muster-rolls of names. Such are found in Paradise Lost 
I. 573-587; 717-772; II. 575-58G; IV. 264-287. The first of these 
references consists of the following lines: 

" For never since created man 
Met such embodied force, as, named with these, 
Could merit more than that small infantry 
Warr'd on by cranes: though all the giant brood 
Of Phlegra with th' heroic race were join'd 
That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side 
Mix'd with auxiliar gods; and what resounds 
In fable or romance of Uther's son 
Begirt with British and Armoric knights; 
And all who since, baptized or infidel, 
Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban, 



NOTES. 113 

Damasoo, or Marocco, or Trebisond, 
Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore, 
\Yhen Charlemagne with all his peerage fell 
By Fontarabia." 

2. Lists. Inclosures by means of ropes for tournaments or other 
athletic performances. 

24. 1. L' Allegro and II Penseroso are two exquisite pastoral 
lyrics written by Milton in 1632. 

25. 1. Comus. A short dramatic poem known as a masque, a 
species of composition in vogue up to the time of Milton. Comus 
was written in 1634 and Samson Agonistes in 1670. Tliese poems 
are discussed with more fullness than any other except Paradise 
Lost. 

2. Byron. Lord George Gordon BjTon (1788-1824), one of 
England's greatest poets of the nineteenth century. In 1830 
Macaulay published in the Edinburgh Revieio an essay on Byron. 

3. Harold. The name of the chief figure in Byron's romance, 
" Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." The poet's own melancholy spirit 
appears only slightly disguised in the character of Harold. 

26. 1. Chorus. The beginnings of the Greek drama are found 
in the songs sung by villagers and peasants at the harvest festivals. 
These songs were accompanied by action. The leader of the chorus 
presented a narrative recital based upon current myths and the 
deeds of the gods. The chorus would comment upon these actions 
in their songs, and express appropriate emotions. About 530 B. C. 
Thespis made the narrative part the main feature. By degrees 
this narrative element was given greater scope, so that two, three, 
and several actors were added, until it developed into the perfected 
drama of ^^schylus. 

2. Aeschylus (525-456 B. C.) was the one who really shaped the 
Greek drama and founded the Greek theater. Of the eighty or 
ninety dramas attributed to him, only seven have come down to us 
complete, — Agamemnon, The Choephori, The Eumenides, The Per- 
sians, The Seven Against Thebes, Prometheus Bound, and The 
Suppliants. 

3. Herodotus (484-424 B. C.) The earliest historian of Greece. 

4. Pindar (522-433 B. C). Xoted lyric poet of Greece. 



114 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

5. Clytemnestra. The passage referred to is found in Agamemnon 
of ^sehylus, V., 813-871. 

6. SopJiocles (497-407 B. C.)- One of the greatest of Greek 
dramatists. 

7. Bas-relief (ba-re-lef) is a species of sculpture in which the 
figures rise only partty out from a Hat surface, or base. 

8. Euripides (480-406 B. C). Another great tragic poet and 
dramatist of ancient Greece. He is perhaps not equal to ^schylus 
in vast oriental imagination, nor to Sophocles in artistic symmetry 
and balance of parts, but he surpasses both in his manner of por- 
traying the actual types of his day. Macaulay later on revised his 
opinion of Euripides, so that he preferred him to Sophocles. 

27. 1. Bottom. A clown in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's 
Dream, Act IV., Sc. 1. 

2. Choral passages. "Samson Agonistes" is a poem in the style 
of the Greek tragedy in which the chorus appears. The chorus 
consists here of a number of Samson's friends and compatriots. 

28. 1. The Masque was a species of brief dramatic composition 
brought into England from Italy and popular in England from the 
fifteenth to the first part of the seventeenth century. It dealt with 
mythological subjects, and romantic incidents from the Middle Ages. 
In the masque appeared fantastic figures, often a motley array of 
heroes, knights, nymphs, elfins, and monsters. In its construction 
great liberty was allowed, so that it did not conform to any strict 
law in the development of the action. Milton's Comus is one of the 
latest as well as one of the best masques in the language. 

2. The Faithful Shepherdess is a pastoral drama by John Fletcher 
(1579-1625). 

3. Aminta. A pastoral drama by tl!e Italian poet, Torquato Tasso 
(1544-1595). 

4. The Pastor Fido. A pastoral drama by another Italian poet, 
Giovanni Battista Guarini (1537-1612). 

29. 1. Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639). A noted scholar and 
courtier, who during the reign of Charles I. became Head Master 
of Eton. When Milton was about to start on his Italian journey 
he sought advice from Wotton, who on his travels in Italy had be- 
come familiar with conditions there. He addressed a letter to him 
and sent him a copy of Comus, which had just been published. 



NOTES, 115 

It is in reply to these couinninications that Wotton wrote the words 
here cited. 

2. In Comus the Protecting Spirit appears in the garments of the 
sheplierd Thyrsis. 

3. The lines quoted are 1012, 1013 of Comus. 

4. Elysian. Elysium is the Greek conception of the place for the 
liappy in the hereafter. They thought of it as a place far in the 
West, where the sun sinks into the sea, a place of balmy winds, of 
trees with golden blossoms, a place characterized by everything that 
is loveliest and best. 

5. 'Nard and cassia are the names given by the ancients to certain 
herbs remarkable for their fragrant odors. 

6. Hcsperides. The daughters of Hesperus, whose duty it was to 
guard the golden apples in the garden of Hesperus. 

31. 1. Dante's great poem was completed in 1320. The funda- 
mental conception is that of a vision. The poet describes what he 
sees as he is conducted througli the thtee realms of departed spirits, 
that of ruin and misery, that of expiation and repentance, and that 
of perfection and bliss. 

2. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), a native of Florence, Italy. He 
was the greatest poet of the Middle Ages. Through the party strug- 
gles of his city, in which he was involved, his property was con- 
fiscated, and he was himself compelled to spend the last twenty 
years of his life in exile. 

3. Tuscan literature. Dante wrote in the dialect of Tuscany, 
thereby bringing this dialect into prominence as the language of 
Italian literature. 

35. 1. Gorgons. These were three serpent-haired female mon- 
sters of Greek mythology. 

2. Amadis of Oaul is the hero of a far-famed romance which ap- 
peared in the Spanish language about the middle of the fifteenth 
century. 

3. Gulliver. The reference is to " Gulliver's Travels," the most 
popular work of Jonathan Swift. This author was a native of Dub- 
lin, and lived between the years 1667-1745. 

38. 1. "The first inhabitants of Greece . . . worshipped 
one invisible deity." Macaulay gains some support for this doubt- 
ful proposition from the statement of Herodotus, that the Pelasgians 



116 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

served nameless gods; i. e., they worshipped in general, Nature as 
a power in sustaining and dispensing life and happiness. 

2. Edu-ard Gibbon (1737-1794), the famous historian, wrote the 
monumental work, " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." 

3. Academy. The grove at Academos was a place in Athens which 
served as a public park. Here Plato lectured to his pupils on 
philosophy. Macaulay has in mind, however, the " New Academy," 
a Greek school of philosophy noted for its skepticism. 

4. Portico. Here is meant the school of the Stoics, formed by 
Zeno. Tliey believed that human happiness consisted in rising above 
the ills of life, and regarding everything as inevitable. 

5. The Lictor carried the fasces, a bundle of rods and an ax- 
symbolically representing tlie authority of the Roman state as 
against the citizen. 

6. Thirty legions. Specific expression for the Roman military 
power. 

7. St. George. According to an eastern legend, St. George was a 
knight who slew a dragon that threatened the life of a princess. 
Later the legend has been taken to symbolize the champion of the 
Christian church. Since the time of Edward III. St. George has 
been regarded as the patron saint of England. 

8. Castor and Pollux were sons of Jupiter and brothers of Helen. 
Tliey were regarded by the ancient Greeks as the protecting genii 
of sailors. To them was attributed the St. Elmo's fire, the flames 
often seen playing about the mast-heads and yard-arms of vessels. 
This phenomenon is now explained as flashes caused by the elec- 
tricity which points like the tops of a mast aid in passing between 
the clouds and the earth. 

9. Cecilia. " Patron-saint of cliurch music." 

40. I. Don Juan. In a Spanish legend of the fourteenth cen- 
tury, the basis of later stories, Don Juan has deeply insulted and 
wronged the daughter of the Governor of Seville. He slays lier 
father in a duel, and later on invites to dinner the statue of the 
dead Governor. The statue accepts the invitation, and, in the midst 
of the banquet, seizes Don Juan and carries him away to the place 
of punishment. 

2. Farinata. A nobleman of Florence who had taken part in the 



ISrOTES. 117 

P'lorentine stru,2:gles. Dante finds him in the underworld. Inferno, 
Canto 10, 22-136. 

3. "Auto da fc" is a Portuguese phrase from the Latin, "Actus 
fidci," an " act of faith." Tlic phrase was originally used in pro- 
nouncing judgment upon a person regarded as a heretic. 

4. Beatrice Portinari, a Florentine maiden whose love dominated 
and inspired the poet Dante throughout his entire life. In the poem 
she is the being who conducts Dante through Paradise. 

41. 1. Torquato Tasso (1544-1595). An Italian poet, author 
of " Jerusalem Delivered." 

2. Klopstock (1729-1803). A German poet, author of "The Mes- 
siah." 

42. 1. Groves. The Grecian temples were located mostly in 
or near a grove dedicated to the deity worshipped in the temple. 

2. God of Light and Goddess of Desire. Apollo and Aphrodite. 

3. Osiris, his wife Isis and their son Horus were the principal 
deities of ancient Egypt. The worship of these was connected with 
secret rites like those of the Greeks in their solemnities in honor of 
BiTcchus and Demetrius. 

4. Idols. Instead of expressing the character of their gods by 
means of form and feature, oriental phantasy had recourse to a 
symbolism giving a giant manj^ arms, and a figure embodying wis- 
dom, many heads. 

5. Furies. Cruel monsters like the Gorgons, repulsive in appear- 
ance, with hair of serpents, and foul bodies. 

6. Prometheus. The myth of Prometheus treated by ^Eschylus in 
his drama of the same name. 

7. Michael was the leader of the faithful angels against the hosts 
of Satan. 

43. 1. Rarely obtrude. In "Paradise Lost" Milton mentions 
himself and his times in III, 21-55; VII, 1-39; IX, 1-47. In 
Dante's work such references are foTind in VI, 56-151; XXIV, 76-81. 

46. 1. Theocritus. He was a Greek poet who flourished about 
the year 280 B. C. He is regarded as one of the foremost pastoral 
poets of the world. The greater part of his life was spent in Sicily, 
where he wrote idyls on the lives and loves of Sicilian shepherds. 



118 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

2. Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533). A great Italian writer of epics 
and lyrics. 

47. 1. Filicaja (1G42-1707). An Italian writer of odes and 
sonnets. 

2. Petrarch. See note, paragraph 18. 

3. English Liturgy. The book here meant is the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, which dates from the reign of Edward VI., 1547-1555. 

49. 1. Oromasdes and Arimancs. In the Zoroastrian religion 
of Persia, Ahriman is a being representing the principle of evil ; 
Ormuzd represents the good. These two powers are in continual 
enmity and conflict, a conflict that will finally result in the triumph 
of the good. 

2. Tito thousand years. The country of ancient Greece lost its 
independence in the year 338 B. C, when it was conquered by Philip 
of Macedon. Then after being subject to Macedonian and Roman 
rulers, it was conquered by the Turks in the fifteenth century. After 
an eight-years struggle against the Turks, the Greeks finally regained 
their independence, in 1830. 

50. 1. Roundheads. A nickname given by the adherents of 
Charles I. to the Puritans, who wore their hair very short. 

2. In paragraph 50 Macaulay gives the chief historians of the 
two sides. As presenting the Puritan side there were Mrs. Hutchin- 
son, Thomas May, Edmund Ludlow, John Oldmixon, and Catharine 
Macaulay. The Earl of Clarendon and David Hume, both Royalists, 
were the ablest writers. 

52. 1. Willia7ti Laud (1573-1645) was the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury. He was one of the most powerful churclimen and states- 
men of the time of Charles I. He stood for absolute power of the 
church and the King. 

53. 1. " Their labour must be," etc. (Paradise Lost, I, 164, 165.) 

54. 1. William, Prince of Orange. He became King of England 
after the Revolution of 1688, and leigned till his death in 1702. 

2. John Somers and the Earl of Shrewsbury were staunch sup- 
porters of William III. 

3. Ferdinand the Catholic. King Ferdinand of Spain; born 1452, 
died 1516. The Inquisition was one of the frightful events of his 
reign. 



NOTES. 119 

55. 1. Goldsmith's Abridgment. A brief and uncritical history 
< f England, written by the poet Goldsmith. 

2. " The question, then, is this." Here Macaulay has eliminated 
irrelevant matter from the discussion, and brought out in strong 
relief what is known among modern debaters as the " main issue." 

56. 1. " The Declaration of Right." In 1689, when William 
and Mary ascended the throne of England, Parliament passed an 
act comprising thirteen points which define and limit the rights of 
the people and the rights of the monarch. 

57. 1. Prerogatives. The power vested in the monarch by virtue 
of his kingship. These prerogatives were not defined and restricted 
by law; they virtually allowed unlimited power to the king, since 
the exercise of his authority required no accountability. 

2. Ship-money. In the History of England (Macaulay) says: 
" Tlie ancient princes of England . . . have sometimes called 
upon the maritime counties to furnish ships in defense of the coast. 
In the room of ships, money had sometimes been accepted." This 
form of taxation was, however, to be levied only in times of war, 
and strictly for purposes of defending the coast; but Charles I. had 
resorted to it during times of peace. He levied these taxes also on 
the inland counties, and with the avowed purpose of replenishing 
his exchequer. In 1640 Charles assented to Parliament's request 
that ship-money should no longer be demanded. 

3. Star Chamber. A court which during tlie political struggles 
proved an efficient means in the hands of the government. Its ses- 
sions were held in a room in the Palace of Westminster. Political 
cases and cases involving differences betAveen the King and Par- 
liament were here disposed of. This court was abolished by the 
Long Parliament, 1641. 

58. 1. Petition of Right. This petition was. submitted to 
Charles I. by his third Parliament. Its aim Avas to restrict the 
rights practiced by the King; and to assert the rights of the people 
as against the prerogatives of the King. See Introduction. 

59. 1. "Le Roi le veut." "The King Wills it." The words 
used by the monarch of England in approving an act passed by 
Parliament. 

60. 1. Paragraph 60 is typical of Macaulay's way of minimizing 
the effect of arguments that may be brought up by the other side. 



120 THE CEANE CLASSICS. 

61. 1. Prelates. Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. 

2. Anton Van Dyke (1599-1641). A Dutch artist distinguished 
particularly as a portrait painter. His portraits of King Charles 
belong to the most excellent examples of this species of art. 

63. 1. Tudors. This dynasty ruled England between the years 
1485-1603. Henry VII., 1485-1509; Henry VIII., 1509-1547; Ed- 
ward VL, 1547-1553; Mary, 1553-1558; Elizabeth, 1558-1603. 

65. 1. Strafford (1593-1641) belonged at first to the opposi- 
tion, but was later won over to the side of Charles. He became one 
of the King's ablest agents, especially in extorting taxes from the 
people. When the Long Parliament convened he was arraigned for 
high treason; the sentence of death was sanctioned by the King, 
and carried out on Tower Hill in 1641. 

68. 1. Sophis)iis. In ancient Athens about the fifth century 
B. C, were certain speakers and rhetoricians called Sophists. They 
taught ingenious arts of persuasion ij? politics and oratory. A 
sophism is therefore an argument calculated to impress by artful or 
deceptive means. 

72. 1. Fifth of 'Novemher. The English Prayer Book formerly 
contained a " Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving " for the fifth of 
November, the anniversary of William's arrival in England; also a 
form for the thirtieth of Janiiary, a " Day of Prayer and Fasting 
for the IMartyrdom of the Blessed King Charles the First." 

74. 1. Salmasius (1588-1653), a famous Latin scholar, who at 
the request of Prince Charles wrote a defense of Charles I. and his 
cause. This was answered by Milton in his Dcfensio pro papula 
Anglicana. 

2. Aencae mac/ni dextra. "The right hand of great ^Eneas." 

75. 1. Protector. The title of Oliver Cromwell during his ad- 
ministration of the alTairs of England, 1654-1658. 

2. Venetian oligarchy. From a government of the people this 
republic was gradually changed so that the administration was in 
the hands of a few citizens — hence an " oligarchy." 

3. Bolivar. Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) was born in Caracas, 
South America, educated in Madrid, traveled in Europe and after- 
wards in the United States, where he became impressed with the 
blessings of the republican form of government. Returning to 



NOTES. 121 

South America, he joined the party of the Liherals, and led them 
in the war which resulted in their independence of Spain. 

76. 1- Instrument of Government. A form of constitution 
framed under the direction of Cromwell, and carried into effect in 
1653. 

2. The Humble Petition and Advice. Another document in the 
form of a constitution. It was drawn up by Cromwell and Parlia- 
ment and formally sanctioned in 1657. It gave Parliament greater 
freedom, but created an upper house, the members of which were to 
be appointed by Cromwell. In addition, it gave the Protector the 
right of choosing his successor. 

3. Independents. A designation often applied to the Puritans. 
Tliey were firm adherents of Cromwell and the Protectorate. In 
religion they demanded perfect liberty of worship, and in such a 
way that the separate congregations were quite independent of one 
another. They were opposed to the High Church party as well as 
to the Presbyterians, but were at one with these in opposition to 
the Catholics. 

77. 1. Belial and Moloch. Names of fiends mentioned in Para- 
dise Lost. 

79. 1. Satirists and dramatists. One of these, Samuel Butler 
(1612-1680), directs his satire against the Puritans in a witty 
poem, " Hudibras." It is said that Charles II. was wont to carry 
a copy of tliis poem in his pocket, and that he took delight in quot- 
ing from it. Puritan foibles are also satirized in some later works, 
such as Scott's " Woodstock." 

2. " Ecco il fonte," etc. " Here is the fountain of laughter, and 
here the stream which contains mortal perils within itself. Here it 
becomes us to be very cautious and to hold our desires in check." 
The citation is from Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered," XV, 57-60. 

80. I. Dresses of friars. The author has in mind here the 
sobriety and uniformity in the dress of the various orders. 

2. Leaden chest. Allusion to the story in the " Merchant of 
Venice," Act III, Sc. 2. 

81. I. Heralds. According to Johnson's Dictionary of the 
English language, a herald is " an officer whose business it is to 
register genealogies, adjust ensigns, armorials," etc. 



122 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

2. Book of Life. Compare this expression Avith Luke x: 20; ReVel. 
iii: 5; xiii: 8; xvii: 18. 

3. Angels. Matt, xxvi: 53. 

82. 1. Beatific Vision. From the Sermon on the Mount, where 
the thought occurs in the "beatitudes": "Blessed are the pure in 
heart, for they shall see God." 

2. Talus. In the Fifth Book of Spenser's Faery Qvieen the hero, 
Sir Artegal, representing Justice, lias a squire and companion, the 
iron man Talus. 

83. 1. Anchorites. An anchorite is a person living in seclusion 
and devoted to an austeie life apart from the world. 

2. Dunstan (925-988). Archbishop of Canterbury, a prelate 
wielding a powerful influence over King Edgar. Under Ethelred his 
power waned so that it is said he died from chagrin. 

3. De Montfort (1150-1218), Dominic (1170-1221), Escobar 
(1589-1669) — all these persons were known for their excessive zeal 
in establishing the religious views of their respective churches. 

84. 1. Doubting Thomas. See John xx: 24-29. 

2. Gallios. Acts xviii: 12-16. 

3. Plutarch. A Greek writer, born in Boetia about the year 50 
B. C. He has written biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans 
with the view of inspiring his countrymen through noble examples 
to deeds of virtue and heroism. 

4. Brissotincs. A political party in France favoring moderation 
and entertaining republican ideas. This party, usually known as 
the Girondists, was put down by the Jacobins in 1793. 

85. 1. Whitefriars. This is the name given to a precinct in 
London which, through certain immunities of its inhabitants from 
arrest, became populated by the most lawless element of the city. 
Here was established in the thirteenth century the House of the 
Carmelite Friars, who were distinguished by their white hoods. 

2. Janissaries. A division of Turkish militia constituting the 
Sultan's body-guard. These soldiers were children of Christian 
parents; they were brought up in the teachings of Islam, and 
trained from infancy among scenes of cruelty and carnage. At last 
they became a distinct class and a terror even to the Sultan. In 
1826 Mohamud II. succeeded, after much bloodshed, in dissolving 
and putting an end to these troops. 



NOTES. 123 

• 3. Round Table. According to the legend the table around which 
King Arthur and liis knights were wont to assemble. The deeds of 
valor ascribed to the King and his champions have become the basis 
for a cycle of poems by English, German and French poets. The 
most famous of these poems is Tennyson's " Idylls of the King." 

86. 1. Gothic. A styffi of architecture characterized by slender 
spires, tapering windows and arches. It was the style in which 
churches and cathedrals of northern and Avcstcrn Europe were built 
during the Middle Ages. 

2. Hero of Homer. Ulysses, before sailing past the island of the 
Sirens, had the ears of his companions filled with wax and himself 
lashed to the mast. Tliese measures were taken as precautions 
against being lured, by the Sirens and their songs, to go on shore, 
where they would have been detained and eventually lost their 
lives, — the usual fate of sailors passing along these coasts. 

3. Cup of Circe. Circe was an enchantress on one of the islands 
of the Mediterranean. She gave to strangers who happened to land 
on the island a drink which changed them into swine. Hermes pro- 
vided Ulysses with a magic herb, which made him proof against her 
spells, and also enabled him to restore those of his companions that 
had been transformed. 

4. Prelacy. A treatise written by Milton in 1642. entitled " Tlie 
Reason of Church Government Urged against Prelacy." 

5. All in honor. " For naught I did in shame but all in honor " 
(Othello V. 2). These words are used by Othello to the uncle of 
the lamented Desdamona. 

87. 1. Poem. Comus is meant here. 

2. '' ye mistook," etc. Comus, 831-835. 

88. 1. Licensing system. A law then in effect requiring per- 
mission from the government before anything could be printed. 

2. Treatise. The "Areopagitica : A Speech by Mr. John Milton 
for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing." In the rest of the para- 
graph are allusions to several other treatises, all championing the 
cause of advanced and Kberal ideas. 

89. 1. " Nit or in adversum," etc. "I struggle against adver- 
sity, nor can the force that overmasters other things overmaster me; 
and against the swift motions of the heavenly bodies, I ride on." 
Ovid's " Metamorphoses," 2, 72, 73. 



124 THE CRANE CLASSICS. 

90. 1. Burke. Edmund Burke (1728-1797). A famous writter 
of English prose, Parliamentary orator, and champion of liberty. 
2. Symphonies. From " The Reason of Church Government." 

92. 1. Elhcood (1G39-1713). A young friend of Milton who 
often assisted the poet in his work by reading to him. 

93. 1. Bosivellism. James Boswell (1740-1795) was a Scotch- 
man, and acquaintance of Johnson, whom he held in extraordinary 
admiration. Boswell jotted down a mass of sayings and other 
minute particulars, from which he compiled a very vivid and com- 
plete life of the lexicographer. In the Edinburgh Review Macaulay 
wrote a/1 interesting but ungenerous criticism of Boswell and his 
work. 

2. Massinger. Philip Massinger (1584-1640) was one of the 
Elizabethan dramatists. The reference here is to his tragedy, "A 
Virgin Martyr." Some eighteen of his dramas are extant. 



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